Rachel Sussman

Rachel Sussman is a Tony Award-nominated creative producer, educator, and entrepreneur committed to cultivating collaborative theatrical work built on trust and transparency. She believes deeply in elevating human stories that challenge existing systems and create more space for inquiry, empathy, and action.

She is a co-founder of The MITTEN Lab, an emerging artist residency program in her native state of Michigan focused on nurturing the next generation of theatre artists. She is also a co-founder of The Business of Broadway, an educational venture with the aim of democratizing commercial producing knowledge in an effort to develop more transparency between artists and producers. She has been a guest lecturer and educator at UPenn, The New School, Fordham University, University of Michigan, and the University of Southern California, among others. She serves as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's School of the Arts, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and BerkleeNYC.

In addition to working as an independent producer, Rachel is the VP of the entertainment company Plate Spinner Productions. She has previously worked with such companies as Audible Theater, The Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, Second Stage Theatre, RKO Stage, the New York Musical Festival (NYMF), Lincoln Center's American Songbook, and CREATE-Ireland in Dublin, Ireland.

Broadway producing credits include: Co-producer on the Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony nominated, What the Constitution Means to Me (Heidi Schreck), Parade (Alfred Uhry, Jason Robert Brown, and Harold Prince), Prima Facie (Suzie Miller); with Plate Spinner Productions: Here Lies Love, Dana H / Is This a Room, The Old Man and the Pool, Sweeney Todd. Off-Broadway: Lead Producer on the Obie Award-winning production of The Woodsman (James Ortiz and Edward W. Hardy). Additional productions include: Dylan Mulvaney's Day 365 Live! (The Rainbow Room), The Appointment (Lightning Rod Special), The Peculiar Patriot (Liza Jessie Peterson, Audible Theater @ The Minetta Lane), Eh Dah? Questions for My Father (Next Door at NYTW), The Rug Dealer (Women's Project Pipeline Festival), Talk to me about Shame (FringeNYC, Overall Excellence Award), and Suffs (Shaina Taub, The Public Theater). Rachel was also one of the producers of Saturday Night Seder (Story Course) a virtual Passover seder during the pandemic that raised over $3.5M for the CDC Foundation.