Susan Lynskey
Joined the faculty in 2003. She teaches acting, dialects, and serves as the Artistic Advisor to Co-Curricular Theatre. She holds a B.A. from McGill University and an MFA from the University of Iowa. Dedicated to new play development Lynskey has spent 15 years as part of artistic initiatives which foster new work including: The Kennedy Center’s New/Visions/New Voices, KC Young Playwrights’ Workshop, ACTF, Millenium Stage and the Page to Stage Festival; Center Stage’s First Look Series; five years with the downstairs series at the Old Vat, at Arena Stage; and at GU, Lynskey serves as Faculty Advisor for the Donn B. Murphy One Acts Festival. Lynskey fosters new plays onstage as well, including performances in World,US, and DC premieres. Recent productions include: Naomi Iizuka’s Citizen 13559, Lanford Wilson’s Book Of Days, Morris Panych’s Girl in The Goldfishbowl, the regional premiere of Lisa Kron’s Well and the world premiere adaptation of Sophie Treadwell’s Intimations for Saxaphone developed with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company. Lynskey serves nationally on the Task Force for Theatre as Social Change and The Association For Theatre in Higher Education’s Actor Training Focus Group. This summer, she was also appointed to serve on the Artistic Advisory Board of Imagination Stage. Her work as an Arts-In-Education Consultant with the Educational Testing Service in Princeton helped to develop National Guidelines for aptitude assessment in Theatre, Music, Visual Arts, and Dance (Grades 4, 8, and 12) for NAEP: “The Nation’s Report Card”, an effort to solidify the inclusion of these subjects in the curriculum of our public schools.
Lynskey is a working professional actor. She performs regularly at area theaters including The Kennedy Center, Center Stage, Round House, The Studio Theater, Signature Theater, and Arena Stage (where she is an Affiliated Artist). Her radio/voicework has been featured on NPR, PBS and the CBC. (She is also known to turn up in roles in film and on television.) Lynskey is a proud member of Actor’s Equity, The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), and (SAG) the Screen Actors’ Guild. Lynskey has received special recognition in the Washington Post, the Washington Times, Washington Theater Review Magazine, and American Theatre Magazine. Her work as an actor has also garnered a Helen Hayes nomination, the Art and New Media Award, and two Artist Fellowship Awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Areas of research and interest include: acting pedagogy and practice, new play development, gender and comedy, ethnography, devised performance, and the reinvention of radiotheatre in a new media context.