JULY 14 • 2022 | 91

Church on Time,
” “The Rain
in Spain” and “I Could Have
Danced All Night.
”
Settling in Detroit in the
early 1900s, Berry’s grand-
fathers were Judge Harry
B. Keidan from Poland and
Joseph G. Berry from Ukraine.
By the time Karen graduated
from Janet Pont’s consecra-
tion class at Congregation
Shaarey Zedek in Southfield,
Berry’s family had moved to
Birmingham.
Now living in Elmhurst,
Ill., Berry attends Oak Park
Temple.
“In a classic, small-world
Jewish community moment,
I met Eddie Pont, who is the
president of my temple. I went
up to him and said, ‘Oh, my
God, I was in your mom’s con-
secration class,’” Berry recounts

the story with a laugh.
If you ask Berry now, she’ll
tell you she got involved in
theater purely by default. As
an eighth-grader at Berkshire

Middle School, Berry dreamed
of getting a coveted spot
on the Timettes swim team
cheerleader squad. But tryouts
for Coach Richard Rosenthal
were a bust when she failed
the stopwatch-reading portion
of the test.
“
As I was leaving in tears, a
group of my friends were in

the hallway and told me they
needed a stage manager for the
play Enter Laughing. So I was
like, ‘Uh, OK.
’ I was completely
hooked from that moment on.
”

An education major at the
University of Michigan, Berry
was a stage manager for most
of the shows. She moved to
New York the day after gradua-
tion and went to work for Tony
Award-winner Tommy Tune’s
press agent. Deciding the job
wasn’t for her, Berry quit after
four months.

“
As I was walking down the
hall on my way out, my friend
from college [Southfield native]
Stan Zimmerman, who was
working as a casting director
at the time, poked his head out
the door and said, ‘There’s a
new Broadway management
company opening up — go
down there right now and
interview.
’ So I did,
” Berry says.
She landed the job as a man-
agement assistant that same day
and stayed with the company
for eight years before moving to
Chicago.
“So, I guess I owe Stan a big
thank you. Because of his kind-
ness, I ended up at exactly the
right place at the right time,
” she
adds. “
And I have been lucky
enough to have a really good
career because of everything I
learned at that first position.
”

Sam Simahk, center, as Freddy
Eynsford-Hill, Shereen Ahmed
as Eliza Doolittle, Kevin
Pariseau as Colonel Pickering
and Leslie Alexander as Mrs.
Higgins in the Lincoln Center
Theater production of Lerner &
Loewe’s My Fair Lady.

“I ENDED UP AT EXACTLY THE

RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME.”

— KAREN BERRY

COURTESY OF BROADWAY IN DETROIT