Teaching Areas: Performance, Theatre Studies
Production Areas: Director, Actor
Courses: Introduction to Theatre
Degrees: M.F.A., B.A., University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
office - 307 Performing Arts Building and 122 Hillcrest Hall
phone - (540) 231-3203 and (540) 231-6823
e-mail - susannar@vt.edu
Susanna joined Virginia Tech’s Theatre Arts faculty in 1999, and the Office of the Provost in 2006. Prior to that, she was on the faculty of the Department of Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a resident actor at PlayMakers Repertory Company from 1989 to 1999. Her most recent performances at VT are as Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, and as Dr. Vivian Bearing in Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit. Since arriving at VT, she has appeared in the premieres of Ed Falco's Sabbath Night In The Church Of The Piranha and Radon, as well as staged readings of his The Pact and Ordinary Dreams; and as Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music. She directed and acted in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues for the national V-Day Initiative campaign in 2002, 2003, and 2005 helping to raise over $40,000 for the NRV Women's Resource Center and multiple international aid organizations.
For the Theatre Arts mainstage, she has directed Anton in Show Business, Moises Kaufman's The Laramie Project (which was selected by the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival to appear in Savannah, Georgia for the regional festival) and Moliere's The Imaginary Cuckold. For the Summer Arts Festival, she has directed Kimberly Akimbo, The Imaginators, Proof, Fuddy Meers, The Yellow Boat, and Cinderella Waltz.
Susanna teaches over 500 students every semester and has received numerous teaching awards from the VT Alumni Association, the Office of Residence Life and Student Programs, and the VT Panhellenic Council; and was a finalist for the University Sporn Award in 2002 and in 2007. She was awarded the Advancing Women Award in 2005. She is a past President and current member of the Faculty Senate; past chair of the Commission on Faculty Affairs; one of the founding members of the Commission on Equal Opportunity and Diversity; a Multicultural Fellow; a CEUT Faculty Associate; and a mediator with the Office for Equal Opportunity. Susanna is a member of Actors Equity Association.