Michael Kushner Photography
RACHEL SUSSMAN is a Tony Award-winning creative producer, educator, and entrepreneur. She believes deeply in elevating human stories that ask hard questions and don't have easy answers.
She is a co-founder of Soto Productions and 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, Juilliard, 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.
She has previously worked with such companies as Plate Spinner Productions, 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 lead producing credits include: Tony and OCC Award-winning Suffs as well as the Special Tony and Emmy Award winner Alex Edelman's Just for Us (also on HBO). Broadway co-producing: Parade (Tony, Drama Desk, OCC Award); What the Constitution Means to Me (Tony nomination and Pulitzer Prize finalist); Romeo & Juliet (Tony nomination); Gypsy starring Audra McDonald (Tony nomination); Prima Facie with Tony Award-winning Jodie Comer. Off-Broadway: All Nighter, The Woodsman, Lightning Rod Special's The Appointment. Additional productions include: Dylan Mulvaney's Day 365 Live! (with Plate Spinner Productions at The Rainbow Room), The Swimmer: The Diana Nyad Story and The Peculiar Patriot (Audible Theater @ The Minetta Lane), Eh Dah? Questions for My Father (Next Door at NYTW), The Rug Dealer (Women's Project Pipeline Festival), and Talk to me about Shame (FringeNYC, Overall Excellence Award). Upcoming: Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares at Edinburgh Fringe in August 2025 and Suffs national tour beginning fall 2025.
With a passion for working at the intersection of theatre and social justice, Rachel has produced and participated in theatrical events supporting non-profit organizations including: Donor Direct Action, Covenant House International, TDF Open Doors, Safe Horizon, She Should Run, Everytown, the ACLU/NYCLU, March For Our Lives, The Trevor Project, and the CDC Foundation's Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund - she was one of the producers of Saturday Night Seder, a virtual Passover seder during the pandemic that raised over $3.5M for the CDC Foundation. She is an Artist Ambassador for the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and sits on the Board for WP Theater and Advisory Boards of Detroit Public Theatre and the Broadway Women's Fund. She is a trustee emeritus of The Awesome Foundation, a past Chair of the Princess Grace Foundation's Theatre Panel, and has served on adjudication and grant panels for the Jimmy Awards, the Fred Ebb Award, the Kleban Prize, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the American Theatre Wing.
A former WP Theater Lab Time Warner Foundation Fellow, Rachel was the recipient of the 2018 Prince Fellowship in Creative Producing, founded by Hal Prince in conjunction with Columbia University and recognized by Variety as "10 to Watch on Broadway." In 2025, she received JQY's inaugural Jewish Queer Icon Award. She is a graduate of the Commercial Theater Institute, a former Columbia University Research Scholar, and a University Honors Scholar alumna of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
She is a co-founder of Soto Productions and 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, Juilliard, 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.
She has previously worked with such companies as Plate Spinner Productions, 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 lead producing credits include: Tony and OCC Award-winning Suffs as well as the Special Tony and Emmy Award winner Alex Edelman's Just for Us (also on HBO). Broadway co-producing: Parade (Tony, Drama Desk, OCC Award); What the Constitution Means to Me (Tony nomination and Pulitzer Prize finalist); Romeo & Juliet (Tony nomination); Gypsy starring Audra McDonald (Tony nomination); Prima Facie with Tony Award-winning Jodie Comer. Off-Broadway: All Nighter, The Woodsman, Lightning Rod Special's The Appointment. Additional productions include: Dylan Mulvaney's Day 365 Live! (with Plate Spinner Productions at The Rainbow Room), The Swimmer: The Diana Nyad Story and The Peculiar Patriot (Audible Theater @ The Minetta Lane), Eh Dah? Questions for My Father (Next Door at NYTW), The Rug Dealer (Women's Project Pipeline Festival), and Talk to me about Shame (FringeNYC, Overall Excellence Award). Upcoming: Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares at Edinburgh Fringe in August 2025 and Suffs national tour beginning fall 2025.
With a passion for working at the intersection of theatre and social justice, Rachel has produced and participated in theatrical events supporting non-profit organizations including: Donor Direct Action, Covenant House International, TDF Open Doors, Safe Horizon, She Should Run, Everytown, the ACLU/NYCLU, March For Our Lives, The Trevor Project, and the CDC Foundation's Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund - she was one of the producers of Saturday Night Seder, a virtual Passover seder during the pandemic that raised over $3.5M for the CDC Foundation. She is an Artist Ambassador for the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and sits on the Board for WP Theater and Advisory Boards of Detroit Public Theatre and the Broadway Women's Fund. She is a trustee emeritus of The Awesome Foundation, a past Chair of the Princess Grace Foundation's Theatre Panel, and has served on adjudication and grant panels for the Jimmy Awards, the Fred Ebb Award, the Kleban Prize, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the American Theatre Wing.
A former WP Theater Lab Time Warner Foundation Fellow, Rachel was the recipient of the 2018 Prince Fellowship in Creative Producing, founded by Hal Prince in conjunction with Columbia University and recognized by Variety as "10 to Watch on Broadway." In 2025, she received JQY's inaugural Jewish Queer Icon Award. She is a graduate of the Commercial Theater Institute, a former Columbia University Research Scholar, and a University Honors Scholar alumna of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.