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