ESSENTIAL THEATRE

Interactive · Spontaneous · Passionate

Who We Are

Susan is the founder and director of Essential Theatre, a nationally-recognized, multicultural ensemble serving audiences across Arizona. Now in its twenty-sixth season, Essential Theatre conducts interactive, improvisational performances and workshops that are for and about the lives of the communities it serves. The company gives audiences artistic experiences that reflect their own lives, give new life to their stories, and inspire them to new possibilities. Since 1990, Essential Theatre has performed and conducted workshops for over 200,000 people of all ages—in theatres and in corporate, educational, inner-city, and rural settings.

What We Do

Essential Theatre’s primary art form is Playback Theatre, an improvisational theatre performance format in which audience members tell stories from their lives and watch them brought to artistic life through music, movement, and theatre. Playback Theatre performances reflect the diversity of human experience and celebrate our common humanity.

Who We Serve

Essential Theatre serves inner-city and rural audiences across Arizona and the southwest, including incarcerated and at-risk youth; homeless adults and children; domestic violence survivors; developmentally disabled adults; public school children and educators. The company also performs for statewide and national conferences, corporations, small businesses, social service and government agencies, and commemorative gatherings. Organizational clients include: Arizona State University, Chase Manhattan Bank, the National Association of Social Workers, Del Webb Corporation, and the United States Marine Corps.

For additional information and booking, please contact Susan at
 essentialtheatre@cox.net