Born in Stockton CA, Susan Hansell (she/her) wrote poetry and fiction from childhood, when, unbeknownst to her, she won a school creative (short story) writing contest judged by independent writers but invalidated by an AP English teacher at her public school because she was not in that AP English teacher's class. This incident was told to her by her mother years later when she received her first New York City production. Her ancestry is Scotch-Irish-British Isles, French-German, Ashkenazi Jewish, Scandinavian-Finnish, Indigenous American, and North African.
Susan Hansell began to write for the stage by constructing texts for dancers, choreographers, and performance artists, including herself. As a result, stylized movement and physical elements remain theatrical aspects in her plays, which include the 10-minute A History, reviewed on NPX, podcast by Panglossian Productions, staged as a reading by the Alternative Theater Company, produced as a filmed zoom video by Spark Creative Works, and included in American Blues Theater's (Chicago) 2022 (online library) RIPPED Festival; the new full-length absurdist comedy An Ocean of Bees, seen in an early cold reading at The Tank (NYC) as presented by The Bechdel Group then selected for development by The Bridge Initiative and staged as a reading at the Bechdel Festival 2.0 (Phoenix); and the new historically-driven three-act drama At Dawn with the Rain and the Stars, from which the first act Who Will Witness for the Witness was staged as a reading by the Shattered Glass Project (Seattle), reviewed on NPX, and produced in 2022 by The St. Louis Actors’ Studio, and, from which the second act Every Concentrated Fragment was showcased at the 2017 William Inge Festival then produced by the Tucson Players in 2018, by the Bay Area Women’s History Festival in January-February 2020, and virtually in August 2021 by the Femme Fatale Festival, Washington DC.
Susan Hansell has lived in various parts of North and Central America, including ten years in NYC, during which time she wrote several freely-adapted classics, including My Medea, (a Best American Short Plays series selection, Applause Theatre Books) and where she was commissioned to write American Rose (a finalist for the Jane Chambers National Playwriting Award), produced at The Ohio in NYC.
A Day In, Affair on the Air, Drop It, Don't, and Trolls (all early solo performance works written while she was a student and shown at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and at The Harold Clurman, with two appearing in Heinemann’s More Monologues for Women by Women) can be seen on YouTube. Susan Hansell holds a BA with high honors from UC Berkeley; an MA from San Francisco State University; and an MFA from Brooklyn College, where she subsequently taught the MFA playwriting tutorials, among other courses. She has translated works of poetry and prose from the Spanish, and has taught theory and literature at universities throughout the United States. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
CONTACT
Email Susan Hansell directly at: <susan.hansell@gmail.com>.
RESUME
An Ocean of Bees. The Bechdel Group Spring Reading Series. March 5, 2018. The Tank, New York City (reading).
My Medea. Cal Rep, Players Theatre, Long Beach, March 4 – 19, 2005 (production).
American Rose: Our Gals on the Homefront, 1941-1945. Commissioned by Sightlines Theatre Company in September and produced at the Ohio Theatre in NYC, March 6-15, 1997.
Reviews:
"Second Round of STLAS LaBute Festival Features Twists, Turns, Strong Acting." Theatre Thoughts, St Louis, MO. <https://snoopstheatrethoughts.com/tag/st-louis-actors-studio/>. 26 July 2022.
“Cal Rep’s My Medea.” Mike Guardabascio. The Long Beach Union Weekly. Vol. 56, Issue 8. 14 March 2005. 11.
“CSULB’s Performance of My Medea.” Mike Guardabascio. The Long Beach Union Weekly. Vol. 56, Issue 8. 14 March 2005. 7.
“Greek Theater, Modern Touch at CSULB.” Harry Saltzgaver. The Long Beach Grunion Gazette. 10 March 2005: 26A.
“Not Like Greek Tragedy, but a Good Show.” Alessandra Djurklon. The Long Beach Press Telegram. 10 March 2005. U Entertainment.
“O.J. Simpson in News Again with CSULB’s My Medea.” Katie DeBoer. The Daily 49er. Vol. LV, No. 86. 9 March 2005.
Critical Studies:
"Highfalutin Greeks." Neal Storrs. Oasis 5.2 Oct.-Dec. (1996): Editor's Foreword.
"Disability in Western Culture." Jenny Morris. Pride Against Prejudice. London: The Woman's Press, 1991. 84-116.
Awards:
Publications - Plays:
"Letters to Jeff Bezos." Rushing Thru the Dark, Autumn 2022. Choeofpleirn Press. 3-7.
A History. The American Blues Theater of Chicago, the RIPPED Festival (online library) limited to June, 2022.
“We Are All Dick 3.” Oasis 11.3 Oct.-Dec. (2003): 26-62.
“Little Kings.” Oasis 10.1 Jan.-Mar. (2002): 29-56.
"Mary Mary." Inflatable Magazine 5, 1999.
"Rollover Othello." Oasis 5.1 July-Sept. (1996): 27-36.
"My Medea." The Best American Short Plays, 1996-97. Ed. Young. New York: Applause Books, 1998. 95-133.
"My Medea." The Best American Short Plays, 1995-97. Eds. Stein and Young. New York: Applause, 1997. 354-389.
"Don't." More Monologues for Women by Women. Ed. Haring-Smith. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, 1996. 61-3.
"Affair on the Air." More Monologues for Women by Women. Ed. Haring-Smith. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, 1996. 58-60.
Publications - Poems:
"Missings/s," "Don't Be Evil" and "The Boyfriend Marriage." Spot Literary Magazine Vol. 10 (2017): 101-109.
"As Usual." Rip Rap 28 (2006): 113-4.
"Winter Pears." Disability Rag Nov.-Dec. (1992): 33.
“From The L.A. Horoscope Poems.” The Portable Californian 1 (1992): 28.
"Odysseyan: Excerpts from the Epic/Epoch." Phoebe 3.1 (1991): 4-5.
"Every House Plant." Metis 7 (1991): 6.
“The Wolf.” Pride Against Prejudice. Morris. London: The Woman's Press, 1991. 6-8.
Publications - Essays:
"Re/fractions from Los Angeles." Phoebe 4.1 (1992): 19-22.
Publications - Translations:
Forced to Move. Renato Camarda. Trans. Susan Hansell. Berkeley: New Americas, 1991.
TEACHING AND EDUCATION:
Faculty Appointments:
California State University, Long Beach, Departments of English, History and Theatre. Lecturer in upper-level Literature (370; 385), Theory (384), and Pedagogy (400) courses, in History of American Women (485), in Theory of Theatre Aesthetics (696), in lower and upper level composition and literature (1; 100; 270; 309) and in interdisciplinary general education courses (372).
Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. Lecturer in the graduate M.F.A. Program in Playwriting: Taught the M.F.A. program tutorials for the graduate-level student playwrights. Lecturer in Core 6 (Landmarks in Literature) Courses; Lecturer in Multi-Disciplinary Composition.
Also: California State University, Northridge; Loyola Marymount University; San Francisco State University.
University Degrees:
Master of Fine Arts: Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.
Master of Arts: San Francisco State University.
Bachelor of Arts: University of California, Berkeley (high honors).
website photo by a. paul cartier