Karen Ludwig (born 1942, San Francisco, California) is an American stage and screen actress, director, and teacher. She attended San Francisco State College, leaving after one year of study to relocate to New York City in 1961, where she began studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. Ludwig later became a pupil of the renowned acting teacher, Uta Hagen.

In 1964, Ludwig made her Broadway debut in The Deputy, followed by The Devils in 1965, starring Anne Bancroft. In 1979, Ludwig appeared in the Woody Allen film, Manhattan, opposite Meryl Streep, and the following year performed again on Broadway in The Bacchae. She has also appeared on Broadway in Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound (1988) and Prelude to a Kiss (1991). Ludwig has been seen on several television series as well, including Chicago Hope, ER, NYPD Blue, and Law and Order, and played the role of Ethel Rosenberg in the 1992 television movie Citizen Cohn. In addition, Ludwig has acted in numerous Off-Broadway and regional theater productions, and has directed plays in both Los Angeles and New York.

Ludwig has also maintained a lengthy career as an acting teacher. From 1996 to 2001, Ludwig taught at University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles, and from 2002 to 2004 she taught at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Beginning in 2005, Ludwig joined the faculty of the Master of Fine Arts program in drama at The New School, where she has taught courses in solo performance and the acting techniques of her mentor, Uta Hagen. During her career at The New School, Ludwig conducted a series of recorded interviews from 2012 to 2018 with prominent actors, playwrights, and directors entitled About the Work.

From 1995 to 2001, Ludwig and a former classmate, Pennie du Pont, filmed several masterclasses given by Uta Hagen and produced a two-part documentary entitled Uta Hagen’s Acting Class, which has served as a record of Hagen’s influential teaching legacy. As of 2022, Ludwig teaches at HB Studio, the school founded by Hagen’s husband Herbert Berghof in 1945, and remains on the faculty of the MFA Drama program of The New School.

Sources

HB Studio. “Faculty: Karen Ludwig.” Accessed July 21, 2022. https://www.hbstudio.org/instructors/ludwig-karen/.

Internet Broadway Database. “Karen Ludwig.” Accessed July 21, 2022. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/karen-ludwig-73384.

Internet Movie Database. “Karen Ludwig.” Accessed July 21, 2022. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0525023/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1.

Karen Ludwig. “Actor.” Accessed July 22, 2022. http://karenludwig.com/#actor.

“Karen Ludwig, Local Favorite, Tells How She Went from P’ Playhouse to Broadway.” Advocate-Messenger, December 27, 1964. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/49844976/karen-ludwig/.

Ludwig, Karen. “Uta Hagen's Acting Class: Discussion with Karen Ludwig, Rochelle Oliver and Austin Pendleton.” Interview by Carol Rosenfeld. New York Public Library, October 2, 2008. https://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/uta-hagens-acting-class-discussion-karen-ludwig-rochelle-oliver-and-austin-pendleton.

The New School. “Faculty: Karen Ludwig.” Accessed July 21, 2022. https://www.newschool.edu/drama/faculty/Karen-Ludwig/.

Westbeth. “Karen Ludwig Video Conversations with prominent actors, directors and writers.” Accessed July 21, 2022. https://westbeth.org/karen-ludwig-the-interview-series/.