Suzanne Bradbeer

Suzanne Bradbeer

Suzanne delivered the keynote address for TheatreWorks-Silicon Valley's New Play Festival at the beginning of their Tony-winning season. Her play Confederates opened the 2016-17 season at TheatreWorks and received seven Bay Area Critics Circle nominations including Best Production. Other productions include Naked Influence (Capital Rep); The God Game (Gulfshore Playhouse/Capital Rep, 4th Wall Theatre...
Suzanne delivered the keynote address for TheatreWorks-Silicon Valley's New Play Festival at the beginning of their Tony-winning season. Her play Confederates opened the 2016-17 season at TheatreWorks and received seven Bay Area Critics Circle nominations including Best Production. Other productions include Naked Influence (Capital Rep); The God Game (Gulfshore Playhouse/Capital Rep, 4th Wall Theatre Company, Hudson Stage, etc.); Shakespeare in Vegas (Dreamcatcher Rep/PTNJ); Full Bloom (Barrington Stage; Hudson Stage, etc.); Lone Star Grace (Theater Workshop of Nantucket); Rita Faye Pruitte (Six Figures Theatre Company); Broken Window Theorem (Barrington Stage, Mile Square Theatre). Suzanne was a contributing writer on Speakeasy (Joe’s Pub), and is the librettist for the musicals Cocus and Doot (commissioned and produced by Vital Theatre Company) and Max and the Truffle Pig (NYMF). Four of Suzanne’s ten minute plays have been produced in the Barrington Stage 10x10 New Play Festivals (2012, 2014, 2017, 2019).

Ms. Bradbeer has received grants from NYFA, the Berrilla Kerr Foundation, the Anna Sosenko Trust, as well as the BMI Foundation’s Harrington Award. She has twice been a winner of the NEXT ACT! New Play Summit at Capital Rep, and was twice an Honorable Mention for the Kilroy’s List. Suzanne also received the Coe College Playwriting Award, was a winner of the Ashland New Plays Festival, the Dayton Playhouse FutureFest, was an Honorable Mention for the Jane Chambers Award and a finalist (one of two) for the Stanley Drama Award. Residencies include: the TheatreWorks – Silicon Valley New Works Festival, The New Harmony Project, PlayPenn, the LAByrinth Theatre Company’s Summer Intensive, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s Southern Writers’ Project, the Lark/Dorset Theatre Festival/Theresa Rebeck Writers’ Retreat, The Drilling Company’s Discovery Series, and New River Dramatists. Suzanne is an alum of Project Y's Writer's Group, and was a Fellow of the Lark’s Playwrights Workshop as well as a 2014-15 featured writer. Her plays have been published by Playscripts, Samuel French, Applause Books, the Connotation Press, and in multiple Smith & Kraus anthologies.

A personal and professional highlight for Ms. Bradbeer was her work as a dramaturg for Arthur Miller and Jim Houghton in Signature Theatre Company’s production of The American Clock. Suzanne is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the EST Playwrights Unit; she frequently teaches as part of the writing faculty at Primary Stages - ESPA and is a workshop leader and regular moderator at the Actors Studio Playwright/Director Workshop.

Plays

  • CONFEDERATES
    The San Francisco Chronicle cheers CONFEDERATES as "Part comedy, part thriller and part morality play".

    Dad’s running for President. Daughter’s running wild. Reporters are running out of time. Then someone unfurls a Confederate flag. A high stakes dive into today’s political media landscape.
  • THE GOD GAME
    "...[In] Suzanne Bradbeer’s invigorating The God Game...the audience can never be sure what’s going to happen next, even in the very last seconds...wonderfully on-target contemporary use of language." The New York Times

    Tom is a Virginia Senator and rising star in the Republican Party. When a long-time family friend resurfaces and offers the opportunity of a lifetime, Tom faces a crisis...
    "...[In] Suzanne Bradbeer’s invigorating The God Game...the audience can never be sure what’s going to happen next, even in the very last seconds...wonderfully on-target contemporary use of language." The New York Times

    Tom is a Virginia Senator and rising star in the Republican Party. When a long-time family friend resurfaces and offers the opportunity of a lifetime, Tom faces a crisis of conviction while his marriage hangs precariously in the balance.
  • SHAKESPEARE IN VEGAS
    "[A] fast-moving romp...Shakespeare in Vegas will undoubtedly add to the award-winning playwright's growing canon of acclaimed plays that includes Full Bloom...Word of mouth should generate good houses before the end of this all-too-short run." Simon Saltzman, President of the Outer Critics Circle.

    Margot is a talented but underappreciated actress desperate to escape the soul suck...
    "[A] fast-moving romp...Shakespeare in Vegas will undoubtedly add to the award-winning playwright's growing canon of acclaimed plays that includes Full Bloom...Word of mouth should generate good houses before the end of this all-too-short run." Simon Saltzman, President of the Outer Critics Circle.

    Margot is a talented but underappreciated actress desperate to escape the soul suck of the New York theater scene. So when a mysterious man offers her a whole season of Shakespeare, she jumps at the chance. Unfortunately the season is in Las Vegas and Vegas, it can’t surprise you to know, may not be the best place to get back your mojo.
  • NAKED INFLUENCE
    “...the fresh expression of a smart, thoughtful voice”. "This world premiere is worth your attention.” From The Berkshire Eagle and The Daily Gazette, respectively.

    A stripper. Her sister. A congressman. The rookie cop. When an exotic dancer decides to leave the profession she is confronted by unintended and potentially dangerous consequences...
  • FULL BLOOM
    "Bradbeer's play doesn't compromise when giving answers to the questions it raises. What makes it special is that she gets an audience to love Phoebe as much as the four characters on stage do..." NJ Star Ledger

    "Consistently engaging" The New York Times

    Fifteen year old Phoebe Harris is a sensitive and observant girl struggling to find meaning in a...
    "Bradbeer's play doesn't compromise when giving answers to the questions it raises. What makes it special is that she gets an audience to love Phoebe as much as the four characters on stage do..." NJ Star Ledger

    "Consistently engaging" The New York Times

    Fifteen year old Phoebe Harris is a sensitive and observant girl struggling to find meaning in a culture preoccupied with youth and beauty. A multi award-winning play that charms with its sly blend of intelligence, poignancy, and humor.
  • THE SLEEPING GIRL
    A screwball drama. With mermaids.
  • THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT
    Another war, another soldier gone. It is 1919 and Jack Ferguson is dead; a casualty of the war to end all wars. In THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT, this loss haunts the action as his wife and sons struggle to make a life without him. A funny and tender new play about the family left behind.
  • I GOT YOU (play in progress)
    Everyone in town wants the same thing from quarterback Carter Johnson: to bring his college football team the national exposure they’ve been working towards for so long. Everyone, that is, except his sister Tanya.

    She just wants Carter to survive the pressure without killing someone.

    As Tanya witnesses her brother teetering between glory and catastrophe, she struggles to prevent...
    Everyone in town wants the same thing from quarterback Carter Johnson: to bring his college football team the national exposure they’ve been working towards for so long. Everyone, that is, except his sister Tanya.

    She just wants Carter to survive the pressure without killing someone.

    As Tanya witnesses her brother teetering between glory and catastrophe, she struggles to prevent him from being lost in a culture where success is everything and the only parental figures in his life are themselves caught up in the all-consuming imperative to win.