Karen Mason

Karen Mason is an American musical theatre actress, singer, and cabaret performer whose Broadway career spans from 1982 to 2011. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, she grew up in St. Louis and Chicago and majored in theater at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, graduating in 1999. Her professional career began in 1976 when she took a position as a singing hostess at Lawrence of Oregano in Chicago, where she first worked with pianist and composer Brian Lasser, a collaboration that continued until his death in 1992.

Mason made her Broadway debut in Play Me a Country Song in 1982 and returned to Broadway in Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989. In 1993, she originated the role of standby to Glenn Close as Norma Desmond in the Los Angeles production of Sunset Boulevard, ultimately performing the role for nearly 300 performances across both the Los Angeles and Broadway runs. She originated the role of Tanya in Mamma Mia!, performing it from October 5, 2001 to October 6, 2002, and received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical for that performance in 2002. Mason took over the role of Velma Von Tussle in Hairspray on April 6, 2008. She played the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland on Broadway in 2011, having also appeared in the Tampa and Houston productions of that show in 2009 and 2010. Additional Broadway credits include Love Never Dies and A Christmas Story The Musical. In 2011, Mason was scheduled to appear as Mrs. Danvers in the musical Rebecca on Broadway. She appeared on the US tour of A Christmas Story, The Musical beginning in November 2011, and toured nationally in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies as Madame Giry, a tour that concluded on December 2, 2018.

Her off-Broadway credits include And the World Goes 'Round in 1991, for which she received an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a production of Carnival! at the York Theatre in 1993, in which she played Rosalie. She performed Karen Mason Sings Broadway, Beatles, and Brian at the Minetta Lane Theater in 1986. Regional credits include Heartbeats by Amanda McBroom at Goodspeed Opera House in 1993, and productions of Gypsy at the Westchester Broadway Theatre, The Muny in St. Louis, Bucks County Playhouse, and the Sundance Theatre.

Alongside her theatre work, Mason has built an extensive career as a cabaret performer. She was among the featured vocalists at the Duplex Cabaret Theatre in New York City in the early 1980s and in 2005 presented a program titled Better Days featuring songs by Brian Lasser. She has performed at venues including Davenport's in Chicago and The Iridium in New York City, as well as at the Bay Area Cabaret at the Empire Ballroom in San Francisco in 2010. In 2010, she also taught at the Theatre Arts Center's Summer Workshops and Camp in Bayside, Queens. Mason has performed in cabaret and with symphonies throughout her career and has recorded six solo albums, including Right Here, Right Now, as well as appearing on the cast recordings of And the World Goes 'Round and Wonderland. She is the recipient of ten MAC Awards, including the 2004 MAC Award for Major Female Vocalist, and three Bistro Awards. In December 2020, she appeared in The Doris Dear Christmas Special on Broadway on Demand.

Mason is married to Paul Rolnick, a producer and composer. In 2017, she performed It's About Time, a song written by Rolnick in 2011, in support of marriage equality.