Susan Jackson

Susan Jackson has played leading roles in WIT, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, as well as portraying real people: Sarah Bernhardt, Dorothy Parker and Jackie Kennedy. . In, 2008, she directed Lee Meriwether in Eugene O’Neill’s LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT. She is a member of PlayGround, the Dramatists Guild of America and a Board member of the Eugene O’Neill Foundation. She won a Bay Area Critic’s Circle Award for best original play for BLESSING HER HEART in 2009 which was performed in the SF FRINGE festival. Other plays have been produced at the Marin Fringe, the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, and other theatre companies. She teaches acting, directing, and playwrighting at City College of San Francisco.

Acknowledgements: Ian Birchall, Dorothy Jackson

Director’s/Playwright’s Notes:

Southern Railroad Company is a company committed to producing work with Southern themes and characters, particularly women. Having lived in North Carolina most of my young adult life, I grew up in an environment that both embraced the culture and defied it. My father was a Civil Rights leader and my mother was for ERA and a re-cyclist before the word was invented. My friends and I smoked cigarettes, ate fried chicken, cole slaw and drank sweet tea. (sun tea, of course). Some of them were /are conservative in their political and social views. But what I take away from the experience is the incredible strength of the Southern women. Their charm combined with their ability to handle any situation was awe-inspiring. One of my friends, who went through moving to another home, the death of her mother, her brother, her young nephew’s suicide, and the end of her marriage (her husband was gay), in a time frame of two years, gave me her advice on how she managed, “one thing at a time.”
One thing at a time. No whining. Bring food. Get a dog.