When Susan Calls Productions

Over twenty years ago, when I began pursuing my passion professionally, I found the lack of quality female roles and the low pay that went along with so many projects made it impossible to survive with the current cost of living. On top of that, there are even fewer opportunities for actresses older than 30 who don’t meet the industry’s unrealistic beauty standards. To do my part in changing the status quo, I created my production company, When Susan Calls. My goal is to boldly create and support work that challenges these societal norms. 

This year, I'm producing my one-woman show, Mage Lynn the Changeling: A Fairy Fail. It is about a misfit fairy child with big feelings and an extraordinary imagination. After becoming shunned and outcast for being different, she is left alone with no friends, no talents, and no control over her emotions (or bodily secretions). Desperate to find joy and acceptance, she embarks on an absurd quest through movie musicals, game shows, and even cartoons to win her happy ending. 

This show empowers women to do what they love now instead of waiting for acceptance or permission. My goal for this show is that it will help people to accept themselves just as they are. 

I plan to take this show to various theatre festivals in the US, leading up to a run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Edinburgh is the biggest theater festival in the world with the largest market to get your show bought and produced.

In addition, under the banner of When Susan Calls, I plan to create writing workshops designed to empower women of diverse backgrounds to get out of their way and put their unique work out into the world. 

I hope you will consider donating When Susan Calls. If you - like me - think that we need more narratives about women who don’t conform and don’t fit in … told by women who don’t conform and don’t fit in, then I sincerely hope you will join this campaign.