Suze Allen is an author, copywriter, editor, dramaturg, theatre professional, writing coach, teacher, ghost writer, life coach through LivingWriteNow, which offers life coaching through a writing modality. Her company, Manuscript Mentor, helps you to turn your dreams and ideas into effective and vibrant writing. Suze’s clients come from all walks of life – scientists, psychologists, business owners, health and wellness practitioners, CEOS, mamas, chefs, playwrights, and all levels of writers who want to bring their story to the page. Suze has also written copy for hundreds of websites and marketing resources as well as articles and interviews for several monthly newsletters, which she also produced.
She is a co-founder of 3Girls Theatre in San Francisco; now in their 11th year, where she started GirlWrights, which gives a voice to young women, and the creator of The Maine Playwrights’ Lab and Short Works Festival, Fresh! New Works San Francisco, and the SF Writers and Actors Lab. Suze served as Resident Dramaturg for 3Girls Theatre and the Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco, where she also taught playwriting. Her dramaturgy clients have had their plays produced all over the country.
Suze served as the Bay Area Representative for The Dramatists Guild of America for 8 years and is a long-time member. She was also a teaching mentor for Each One Reach One’s playwriting program for young men incarcerated in the juvenile jail system and playwright in residence at Balboa High School in San Francisco for 3 years.
In September 2023, she directed and coproduced Pinkplot Productions’ collaboration with The Hill Arts of Portland, Maine in the world premiere of Roland Tec’s What We Get To Keep. Suze ended up having to play the role of Pat after a lead actress couldn’t complete the run. Suze has been a professional director for over 40 years, with a specialty in new work, adaptations and multimedia staging and collaboration. She currently directs Some1Speaking for Roland Tec’s Hear Me Out Monologues, which plays on the first Monday of every month.
Her own plays have been on stage at Dramatists Guild’s SF Footlights, Tides Theatre, Brava Theatre, The Marsh, Intersection for the Arts, Noh Space, The Phoenix, OutNorth Contemporary Art House in Anchorage, Alaska and The SF and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. She has been teaching all levels of playwriting for 30 years.
Suze ‘s classes include Memoir– the Art of Legacy Writing, Writing Through Grief and Sorrow, Writing Recovery, People of Substance, Memoir and Monologue – Legacy Writing for the Page and the Stage, Playwrights Lab, Mama-logues – Writing Workouts to Keep Mama Sane, Centered and Creative and All In – a communication workshop taught with Lisa Stathoplos. Mining the Depths – a memoir and monologue workshop with Roland Tec.
Three important events that Suze hosts – Memoir Church on the first Sunday of every month, which features memoirists in conversation and reading from their work. (see her Memoir Church YouTube channel )
Do You Know What Happened to Me? Live Zoom Room and Flash Mob Theatre ~ first person narratives on a theme. Submissions welcome for Abortion Stories and Destigmatizing Mental Illness ~ Depression and Suicide Stories.
SafeSpace Saturdays with Lisa Stathoplos, the first Saturday of the month, a safe and confidential space for sharing our stories, our issues, our hurts and brokenness to create a web of hope and possibility and change.