Bio

Suzana Berger is a theatre artist, educator, and community partnership builder with a focus on vivid physical performance, creating new work that explores social issues imaginatively for audiences of all ages, and using stories to connect those who previously thought they had nothing in common.

A spirit of play and deep respect for children’s experiences of the world permeate Suzana’s work for young audiences. As Artistic Director and co-founder of Dragon’s Eye Theatre, she has developed and directed A Mystery? and Seek & Hide (both by P. Seth Bauer with the ensembles), interactive theatrical adventures for the young in age and the young at heart created with and for Philadelphia treasure Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse. Suzana and co-founder Miriam White were awarded a Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grant to bring preschool groups to see Seek & Hide.

Suzana’s directing credits include Suzan-Lori Parks’ The America Play (Plays & Players); Spring Awakening (Penn Players); Jester’s Dead (The Outfit at Philly Fringe); Shakespeare Remix Macbeth and Leila Buck’s One (Epic Theatre Ensemble, NYC); If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (Synchronicity Performance Group, Atlanta); Naomi Wallace’s A State of Innocence (Culture Project, NYC); Zohar Tirosh's Pieces (New Repertory Theatre, Boston); Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers (Penobscot Theatre, Bangor, Maine) and a workshop production of Zohar Tirosh’s Home/Front at Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.

Her international work includes leading a performance workshop to explore Shakespeare’s Pericles with Palestinian actors in Ramallah, and assistant directing for acclaimed auteur Josh Fox on the premiere of International WOW Company’s You Belong to Me in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Suzana has developed thought-provoking, original theatre with young people through Philadelphia Young Playwrights, Mural Arts Program, and InterAct Theatre Company, Epic Theatre Ensemble and Vital Theatre (New York), and Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington, DC). She has also done extensive work preparing students of all ages to see productions of Shakespeare’s plays through New York’s Classic Stage Company and Brooklyn Academy of Music

Nearly all of her work across all forms – professional theatre, teaching, grant writing, and more – has a partnership at its core. Suzana recently led Theatre Horizon’s Imagine No Homelessness: bringing together actors, college students, and currently and formerly homeless Norristown residents to share stories and create new art inspired by Theatre Horizon’s production of Suzan-Lori Parks’ In the Blood.

Suzana earned her MFA in Theatre with a concentration in directing from Sarah Lawrence College, and her BA in English with a minor in Urban Education from the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches August Wilson & Beyond (a partnership with the West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance), and Teaching Performing Arts for Cross-Cultural Education. She is currently the Coordinator of the Urban Arts, Culture, & Humanities Partnership Program for Penn’s Netter Center of Community Partnerships.

She lives in Philadelphia, the city where she was born.