Susan E. Evans is a San Francisco Bay Area-based director. She began a bi-coastal adventure as Artistic Director at Live Arts Theater in Charlottesville, Virginia,  in June 2021.

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She received her undergraduate degree from Emory University in Atlanta, and further post-grad training at the Drama Studio London @ Berkeley. She brings a strongly text-based approach to both new and classic work.

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She served as the Artistic Director of Eastenders Repertory Company from December 1998 to June 2010. Her directing work with Eastenders included We Won't Pay, We Won't Pay (Dario Fo), Frozen (Bryony Lavery) and Fear and Misery of the Third Reich (Brecht) co-directed with Founder Charles E. Polly. At Eastenders, which focused on reenvisioning classics and developing new works, she was very proud to have directed the  World Premieres of Parts II and III of Mr. Polly's acclaimed Twyla Trilogy about his coming-of-age and coming out in Appalachia. While she was at ERC, the company also became known for its ambitious annual one-act play festivals, chronological (100 year) retrospectives of the short-play form on such themes as political theatre, sexuality/gender, comedic styles, and queer theatre, performed in rotating repertory.

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From April 2011 through June 2016, she served as the Artistic Director of the Douglas Morrisson Theatre in Hayward, where she directed Private Lives, Dividing the Estate, All My Sons, Eurydice, An Ideal Husband (Scott Munson adaptation), The Skin of Our Teeth and Mrs. Warren's Profession.  At DMT Susan inaugurated an annual “Playwrights’ CageMatch,” contest, programmed community storytelling evenings and a second stage series of staged readings.

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In December 2016, Susan became the Artistic Director at Town Hall Theatre in Lafayette, working with such an amazing team of local artists at a theatre with a rich history. During her time at Town Hall, she expanded programming with the In the Wings reading series and playwriting contest, bringing more diverse voices into the space. For Town Hall, she directed Kate Hamill's Sense & Sensibility (winning a local Shellie Award for her work), Lauren Gunderson's The Revolutionists (Bay Area Premiere), and a new translation of the pre-rehearsal script of The Cherry Orchard. The Artistic Director position was eliminated in July 2020 due to the pandemic.

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Her work with solo artists includes two collaborations with solo artist Carolyn Doyle on productions at the Marsh and the SF Fringe Festival, as well as producer of a Solo Artists Festival at DMT which featured Josh Kornbluth, Ann Randolph and Marga Gomez. She enjoys ongoing directing projects with Actors Reading Writers in Berkeley.

 

In Fall of 2020 she embarked on The Brecht Project with playwright Scott Munson, commissioning new playwrights, inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, to transport and reimagine these stories in our 21st c. America.

 

Susan is an Associate Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. She makes her home in Oakland, California, with her partner Karen Bennett, and now also in Charlottesville, VA.

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