artistic Direction

Ariana Karp • International Shakespeare Center

Artistic Director: Ariana Karp

Ariana (she|her) is an actor, director, educator, and cellist. She has been the Artistic Director of ISC Santa Fe since 2018. She is an alumna of London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) with a Master’s degree in Classical Acting for the Professional Theatre, and a Bachelor’s degree in Literature-Theatre from Reed College. Ariana has made theatre in New York, London, and across the United States and Japan.

She has taught university courses on acting, Shakespeare, voice, and movement, and completed teaching residencies and workshops for actors and students of all ages throughout the US. In the fall of 2025 she began work as a teaching artist with Marin Shakespeare Company's Shakespeare for Social Justice program in various prisons throughout California's Central Valley. She is passionate about the cultivation of radical empathy, and has extensive teaching and directing experience focused on empowering individuals and developing ensembles through ownership of Shakespeare’s language, the “quick-raise” process, textual analysis, Laban movement work, improvisational practices in performance, voice and vocal technique, creative problem solving, and using movement to activate the text through the body.

Since 2023, with her acting and devising collaborator Andrew Codispoti, she has developed and performed the original and constantly-evolving production Shakespeare’s Duets: Turn and Change. The production has been performed in Santa Fe, NM, Newburyport, MA, and Waterville, ME. She is a member of the international collective of artists, The Shakespeare Ensemble (curated by Ben Crystal) and joined them on a tour of Japan in 2019, performing Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet in original pronunciation (OP). Ariana is married to award-winning professor and author Charlie Hankin and lives in Davis, CA.

Previous credits with ISC Santa Fe: lead facilitator, costumes, sound designer, and Officer in Othello (2025); co-facilitator, sound designer, Tom Snout (Wall and Moonshine), and Mustardseed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2025); Director of Believe None of Us staged reading (2025); Petruchia, co-facilitator, sound designer in The Taming of the Shrew (2024); lead facilitator, sound designer, and company manager of Romeo and Juliet (2024); deviser and performer in Shakespeare’s Duets: Turn & Change (2023); director, sound designer, and Tyrrell in Richard III (2023); director, composer, and sound designer of The Winter’s Tale (2021); director, sound designer, and Gower in Pericles (2021); director and sound designer of Julius Caesar (2021); Aufidius in Coriolanus (2021); director, composer, sound designer of Henry IV, Part I (2019); Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure (2019); Regan, composer and sound designer in King Lear (2018).

Associate Artistic Director: Zoe Burke

Zoe (she|they) is an actor, director, intimacy professional, and licensed K-12 theatre educator. She has been the Associate Artistic Director of ISC Santa Fe since 2024. Zoe holds a B.S. in Education with a Speech/Theatre endorsement from Newman University and is pursuing a M.Ed in Theatre Pedagogy from Southeastern Oklahoma State University. In Santa Fe and her hometown of Wichita, KS, Zoe has directed, acted in, and intimacy directed dozens of productions in community theatre, professional, and educational settings. Zoe coordinates ISC Santa Fe’s BAR(d) program and is passionate about developing responsive, equitable, and accessible Shakespearean programming and curriculum.

Zoe served as a Teaching Artist for SAG-AFTRA accredited intimacy design training company Intimacy Director and Coordinators during their Consent Forward Artist program, where she taught foundations of consent based practice and intimacy design to hundreds of students across the globe; she also developed and taught curriculum for IDC centered around inclusive and culturally sensitive practices for working with Indigenous actors. She serves as resident intimacy professional for several Santa Fe area theatre companies and regularly teaches workshops on intimacy, consent, and boundaries for schools and companies throughout New Mexico and Kansas. 

Previous credits with ISC Santa Fe: intimacy coordinator of Othello (2025); intimacy coordinator of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2025); Facilitator of BAR(d): As You Like It (2025); Facilitator of BAR(d): Antony and Cleopatra (2025); Ophelia in Believe None of Us staged reading (2025); Director of Bernhardt/Hamlet staged reading (2025); Facilitator of BAR(d): The Merry Wives of Windsor (2024); Lady Macbeth in BAR(d): Macbeth (2024); facilitator of BAR(d): A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2024); intimacy coordinator of The Taming of the Shrew (2024); intimacy coordinator of Romeo and Juliet (2024); facilitator of BAR(d): Love’s Labour’s Lost (2024); Sebastian in BAR(d): Twelfth Night (2023); intimacy coordinator of The Winter’s Tale(2022); intimacy coordinator of Pericles (2022); intimacy captain, Peto, Lady Mortimer, and Vernon in Henry IV, Part I (2019); intimacy captain, Julietta and Servant in Measure for Measure (2019).