Susannah Waters

Susannah Waters is a British writer and director. Born in Kent, England, she attended both Bennington College in America and the Guildhall School of Music, in London, as well as the National Opera Studio. Actor Mark Rylance is one of her brothers. For twelve years, she worked as an opera singer, performing principal roles in many of the world's leading opera houses, including the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, New York City Opera, Santa Fe Opera Festival, LA Opera, Seattle Opera, Théâtre du Châtelet, and Royal Swedish Opera. In 2002, she left singing to become a writer and stage director. Her first novel, Long Gone Anybody, was published by Black Swan in 2004, and short-listed for the Pendleton May Award and Geoffrey Faber Award. Her second novel, Cold Comfort, published by Black Swan in 2006, featured on Radio 4’s Today programme as one of the first fictional novels dealing with the effects of climate change. She is currently completing her third. She was an Associate Tutor in Creative Writing at the University of Sussex, and has tutored for the Arvon Foundation as well as mentoring for The Literary Consultancy. Her first music theatre piece, the regina monologues, was commissioned by the Covent Garden Festival in 2001, and starred, in respective productions, Penelope Keith, Janet Suzman and Susannah York. Other commissions for theatre have included The One I Love, a music theatre piece on conscientious objection to war for New Kent Opera, It’s Your Funeral, Baby, for Brighton-based company Theatre and Beyond, and Red All Over, a site-specific play performed in six rooms of a hotel, commissioned by the Lewes Live Literature Festival. Her most recent play, Eat This, was produced in a disused brewery and revived in the autumn of 2011 with the addition of an accompanying piece, Drink That. In 2004, she founded her own production company, The Paddock, and as the Artistic Director, devised and produced theatre, danc