Susan Gratch is an award-winning scenic and puppet designer and educator. She is Emerita Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Occidental College.
Susan’s award winning designs are familiar to Los Angeles area audiences. Recent projects include scenery for Something Rotten, Once Upon a Mattress, and Floyd Collins at San Gabriel Valley CSArts; puppets for Amos & Boris and scenery for Stinky Cheese Man at South Coast Repertory; scenery for Colony Collapse and puppets for The Children at Boston Court Theater; scenery for Trevor, The Liar, and The Big Meal at Artists Repertory Theater in Portland, OR; and scenery for The Doctor’s Dilemma at A Noise Within.
Other designs include scenery and/or lighting for nearly 90 productions at Occidental College, among them Into The Woods, Seize The King, Everybody, Urinetown, The Liar, Berkhoff’s Agammenon, and Hairspray; Theater 150 in Ojai, CA (scenery for Breadcrumbs and scenery and puppets for The Winter’s Tale); The Theatre@Boston Court (Othello, Bleed Rail, Winchester House, Mother Courage, Cold Tender); A Noise Within (Ghosts, Arms and the Man); The Colony Studio Theatre (The Thousandth Night, Indoor/Outdoor, The Man Who Came To Dinner, Putting It Together, Heartbreak House, Could I Have This Dance?); The Geffen Playhouse (War Music); 24th Street Theatre (Kate Crackernuts); International City Theatre (Visiting Mr. Green, Amy’s View, The Servant to Two Masters, Swinging on a Star); Los Angeles Theater Center (War Music, Ian McKellen’s A Knight Out in Los Angeles); and Bottom’s Dream Theatre Company (premiere’s of Eric Ehn’s Fire Flow, Choke Cherry, Ruth Margraff’s Elektra Fugues and Mac Wellman’s The Lesser Magoo).
Susan’s non-theatrical projects include: Spirit of Liberty Awards presented by People for the American Way; Achievement Awards presented by the Fulfillment Fund; and pageant puppet design development and execution for the 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympics Closing Ceremonies and the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies.ting.]