Karen Willliams is a stand-up comic, emcee, humor educator, writer, gerontologist, and inspirational speaker.
She graduated summa cum laude from Cleveland State University with a personally designed major in “Humor and Healing,” earned a Master of Education degree from CSU’s Adult Learning and Development program, and taught the nation’s only four-credit senior seminar in stand-up comedy in CSU’s Dramatic Arts department. She also directed inaugural comedy classes at Second City in Cleveland. Karen graduated with a Ph.D. in social gerontology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Karen is the Founder and CEO of the International Institute of Humor and Healing Arts aka HaHA Institute, and former owner of The Healing Place Education Center. She is a keynote speaker in the areas of diversity, humor and healing, and joyful aging.
Since 1990 she has been a featured comic performer with Olivia Travel cruises and resorts. Curve magazine calls her “a laugh riot.” The Sydney Morning Herald proclaims that she is “ferociously funny, with perfect pace, timing, and structure.”
Karen was a ghostwriter for Columbia Pictures and a television host and writer for In the Life. Her humor writings appear in numerous anthologies, including Joke Stew, Revolutionary Laughter, Out in All Directions, and Out, Loud, & Laughing. She is currently working on a lifestyle book titled Living the Laughter Lifestyle.
Karen is also the creator and facilitator of the Humor-at-Large Workshop Series; founder of the National Women’s Comedy Conference; past president of the Association of Women’s Music and Culture; and former board member of AIDS, Medicine and Miracles; Love Makes A Family; and the National Black Justice Coalition. She served as a certified provider of communication skills and diversity courses for the California Board of State and Community Corrections, providing diversity training for police, probation, correctional, and juvenile justice officers throughout the State of California.
Known for her quick repartee, insightful commentary, audience rapport, and sheer likeability, Karen is a comic craft master, a gifted actor, a multitalented writer, and an inspirational lecturer whose HaHA Institute attracts clients from the public and private sectors. Armed with her “healing with humor” philosophy, Karen is a modern-day alchemist whose audiences revel in her cathartic laughter and whose peers consider her a comic’s comic.
Karen Williams continues to perform comedy worldwide, narrate shorts and films, and promote joyful aging through talks and seminars while teaching acting and stand-up comedy at HaHA Institute.