Karla Burns (December 24, 1954[1] – June 4, 2021) was an American mezzo-soprano and actress who performed nationally and internationally in opera houses, theatres, and on television.
Her first major success was as Queenie in the Houston Grand Opera's 1982 revival of Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern's 1927 musical Show Boat.
[2][3] Her father was a jazz and gospel pianist and her mother, a seamstress and employee of the American Red Cross, sang spirituals and old hymns at church.
[5][2] Burns attended Wichita State University (WSU), from which she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Education and a BA in Theatre Performance.
[1] At WSU she performed in several university productions: she was Polly Peachum in Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, and also appeared in Arthur Miller's The Crucible and Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
The part of Queenie in Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern's Show Boat became a pivotal role in Burn's performance career.
[7] Directed by Michael Kahn and starring Lonette McKee and Ron Raines, the HGO production premiered at Jones Hall in Houston in June 1982, and then toured for performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., and finally at the Gershwin Theatre on Broadway in 1983.
[2] When the show moved to the London Palladium in 1991, Burns's contribution to it won her the Laurence Olivier Award, the United Kingdom's most prestigious prize for theatre.
[15] She also recorded the role in 1988 for EMI Classics with the London Sinfonietta and a cast that included Frederica von Stade, Teresa Stratas and Jerry Hadley.
[22] Burns also appeared in numerous William Shakespeare plays including as the Duke of Ephesus/Luce in the 1987 Lincoln Center production of The Comedy of Errors at the Vivian Beaumont Theater with The Flying Karamazov Brothers.
[26] On the opera stage, Burns achieved success as Addie in Marc Blitzstein's Regina, which she first performed at the Long Wharf Theatre in 1988.
[33] Burns's regional theatre productions included roles in several plays and musicals; she appeared as Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly!, Katisha in The Mikado, Berenice Sadie Brown in The Member of the Wedding, Calpurnia in To Kill a Mockingbird, Mother Shaw in Regina Taylor's Crowns, Jeanette in The Full Monty, and Mother Superior, Robert Anne and Sister Hubert in Nunsense, among others.
[35] In addition to her appearance on Live from Lincoln Center, Burns's television credits include the role of Hottie Joseph in the 1984 TV movie The Parade with Geraldine Page.
[39] After four years of restoring her vocal resources, she returned to the stage in 2011 as Pseudolus in Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in Wichita.