Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Karin moved to Canada with her family as a child and grew up in Edmonton, Alberta where she originally trained as a dancer. After graduating from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Arts, she moved to Vancouver, British Columbia to pursue a career as an actor.
Karin’s extensive screen credits include “Maurice the Orangutan” in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes, the lead role of “Mary Leonard” in the feature film Cable Beach (for which she received a Philip Borsos award), supporting roles in many other features and guest star and recurring roles on numerous tv series such as Tracker, Wild Cards, School Spirits, Schmigadoon Season Two (Schmicago), Snowpiercer, The Good Doctor, So Help Me Todd, Big Sky, The Twilight Zone, When Calls the Heart, Bates Motel, Intruders, Travelers, I Zombie, Supernatural, and many more. Karin won the Best Actress Award in the 2018 UBCP/ACTRA Awards for her guest star dual roles of Chucky and Judy Poundstone in the X-Files episode “Plus One.” For a complete resume of screen credits please see Karin Konoval on IMDB.
Karin has received numerous awards for her work in theatre, performing lead roles in contemporary classics like August, Osage County to a wide range of musicals such as Sweeney Todd, The Threepenny Opera, Guys And Dolls and many others. She has especially enjoyed performing the music of Stephen Sondheim, Kurt Weill, Jacques Brel and Leonard Cohen.
Karin’s writing has been published in various anthologies and literary magazines, and broadcast on CBC Radio. On Constance (published in 2022), Karin’s memoir of her journey to and through New Orleans during the filming of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, was a Gold Medal Winner in the 2023 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards, Bronze Medal Winner in the 2023 Independent Publisher Book Awards, short-listed for the 2023 Whistler Independent Book Awards, and awarded Distinguished Favorite in the 2024 Independent Press Awards. It is available as a print book through Friesen Press, Amazon, and Chapters Indigo, and as an audiobook through Post Hypnotic Press, Audible, and Sound Cloud. As an artist, Karin creates series of paintings that tell a story, and has had many solo exhibits of her work. Her first illustrated book, Jeffrey Takes a Walk in December, was published in 2015. It is available through Friesen Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Chapters Indigo.
Becoming acquainted with orangutans and studying their behavior for her role as “Maurice” sparked a profound personal interest. Karin has continued to learn much more about these compelling great apes and the challenges facing their conservation.