The Bijou Dream Theatre

My Memoir The Bijou Dream Theatre is about how I survived my childhood losses: the mental illness and alcoholism of my parents and our placement in a foster home. Along the way, a Quaker family takes us in and nurtures us for a while. I meet the love of my life and win a scholarship in voice to JUILLIARD. Through it all I dream of fame and a better life, but like W. Somerset Maughan’s characters in “Of Human Bondage” I come to accept my limitations and seek a path that keeps me whole.

My Memoir The Bijou Dream Theatre is about how I survived my childhood losses: the mental illness and alcoholism of my parents and our placement in a foster home. Along the way, a Quaker family takes us in and nurtures us for a while. I meet the love of my life and win a scholarship in voice to JUILLIARD. Through it all I dream of fame and a better life, but like W. Somerset Maughan’s characters in “Of Human Bondage” I come to accept my limitations and seek a path that keeps me whole.

After the dissolution of my family, we were brought up in a foster home in upstate New York in the Hudson Valley. At 18, I studied voice at Juilliard for three years. Later, I graduated from Dutchess Community College in the Hudson Valley. There, I earned a B.A. at Bard College with a double major in English and Music, and an M.A. In English Literature from SUNY NEW PALTZ. As an Adjunct I taught English at D.C.C., SUNY NEW PALTZ, and at high schools in Dutchess County. I have been married for 56 years to my childhood sweetheart, Kevan Karl. We have two daughters, Terry Karl and Kathleen Karl Shaw, and two granddaughters, Madeleine and Joanna Shaw. We live in Dutchess County, New York.