Bio
Susan Batson
Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, Batson began her lifelong excursion into the art of acting at Adele Thane's Boston Children's Theater
Actor, writer, director, producer, teacher, and coach Susan Batson has been called an "alchemist" by the New Yorker. In private consultation on film sets all over the world and in her New York acting studio, Susan Batson has enjoyed the privilege of working with Nicole Kidman, Juliette Binoche, Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Tom Cruise, Kerry Washington, Zac Efron, Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx, Sean Combs, Liv Tyler, Jennifer Connelly, Kirsten Dunst, Laverne Cox, Common, Janet Jackson, Rihanna and countless other actors searching for truthful connections between themselves and the characters they play. Nicole Kidman, who has worked closely with Susan for more than twelve years, hails her as a uniquely insightful acting coach with "a hell of a lot of pure talent," while Oscar winner Juliette Binoche praises Susan's ability to "shake you like a tree and get the fruits down." Susan Batson was publicly thanked by Kidman after receiving her Oscar for The Hours (2002), and by Tom Cruise in his Golden Globes acceptance speech for Magnolia (1999).
Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, Batson began her lifelong excursion into the art of acting at Adele Thane's Boston Children's Theater. She graduated from Emerson College's Theater Arts Program and received a John Hay Whitney Fellowship to study with Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof in New York. She was in the original cast of Hair and became a protege of theater legend Joseph Papp and Harold Clurman. She is a member of the Actors Studio and a recipient of a New York Drama Critics Award, an LA Drama Critics Award, and an Obie. She has worked with directors like Spike Lee, Michael Haneke, Erik Poppe, Kim Farrant, and Jane Campion to name a few. Susan Batson was also a producer of the hugely successful Broadway revival and television production of A Raisin in the Sun, (2007) (TV), starring Sean Combs.
Batson's mother, the late Ruth M. Batson, a renowned champion of equality in education, remains the guiding spirit in Batson’s commitment to the education of the artist. She is available to her legion of loyal clients 24 hours a day.
Susan Batson is the author of the book "Truth: Personas, Needs, and Flaws In The Art of Building Actors and Creating Characters" and has been profiled in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, and Backstage.
Liza Jessie Peterson
"I am without question a better artist and a more aware human being because of this sacred creative wisdom shared by the yoda of acting coaches...Susan Batson...her technique is all about The TRUTH"
The Book
Truth
A must-read for beginning actors, a wake-up call for working actors, and an indispensable reference for writers
Stanislavski, Strasberg, Meisner, Adler, Berghoff, Hagen, Mamet...now Batson.
Like all great performers, Nicole Kidman approached her role in The Hours as a creative collaboration. Kidman knew that portraying Virginia Woolf on screen required a truth that she as the actor and Woolf as the character shared. Enter acting "alchemist" and "technician of the spirit" (The New Yorker) Susan Batson. Batson's process gave Kidman the tools to find that truth and honed her performance from the inside out. She won an Oscar® for her work.
In TRUTH, the most sought after acting guru in Hollywood and on Broadway distills her half century's experience as an actor, teacher, and personal coach into a step by step process for creating a character from first read-through to final performance.
Debunking a century's worth of myths about "method acting," Batson identifies the unifying forces of Need, Public Persona, and Tragic Flaw to unite the actor with his or her character. Need is the primal, unfulfilled desire that a character's Public Persona hides. Tragic Flaw is the confrontational dramatic behavior that erupts when the character's Need and Public Persona clash. TRUTH shows how actively defining and understanding these three principals leads to the most truthful performances possible.
A must-read for beginning actors, a wake-up call for working actors, and an indispensable reference for writers, TRUTH reveals the inner game of telling stories and creating vivid, three-dimensional life out of words.