The youngest of five children born in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, Susan has worked as a professional actress and singer around the country and abroad in theatre, television, and film. Additionally, McGinnis is a writer, director, producer, and teacher. She has taught acting to children from pre-school aged through high school in both academic and extracurricular settings. As a private acting coach, she works with actors of all ages.
For close to two decades, Susan mentored and created original theatre with young people in NYC’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood with The 52nd Street Project. The organization’s mission is to increase literacy and self-esteem in its largely first-generation immigrant population through plays and playwriting.
Susan was the lead singer for the band Les Autres, and continues to appear as a guest singer for a variety of bands.
Having written and produced original works with several New York-based theatre companies, McGinnis became Founding Artistic Director of Seaside Shakespeare, a non-profit theatre company she created, performing the works of William Shakespeare and other inspiring artists in the bars, beaches, churches, and schools of Nantucket, MA. The company created “The Wit and Wisdom of Will’s Women” an original play with music.
McGinnis and her colleague, composer Kim D. Sherman, are currently developing a work that links scenes from multiple Shakespeare plays in a contemporary setting to create a narrative. The cast calls for one man and five women—creating a greater number of opportunities for the latter than most of Shakespeare’s plays as originally written.
McGinnis is currently writing her one-woman show, Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered: Tales of a Reluctant Waitress.
A proud member of AEA and SAG/AFTRA, Susan holds a BA in Theatre from St. Mary’s College at the University of Notre Dame.
“Susan S. McGinnis takes a star turn and Bad Dates is a delight.”
“The cast is anchored by the highly-versatile and skilled Susan S.McGinnis whose emotive singing voice is one of the highlights of the show”
“The multi-talented McGinnis gets better and better with every role; her performance alone makes the play worth seeing.”
“The poised and talented Susan S. McGinnis serves as the solid center of “Love, Loss, and What I Wore.”
“I had seen Susan McGinnis perform in a couple of Shakespeare plays before that day, but never heard her sing. She has an amazing voice. The performance was outstanding.”
Charitable Interests
4Ocean, an organization whose purpose is to clean the ocean and coastlines while working to stop the inflow of plastic by changing consumption habits
The 52nd Street Project (The Project) is dedicated to the creation and production of new plays for, and often by, kids between the ages of nine and eighteen that reside in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in New York City. The Project does this through a series of unique mentoring programs that match kids with professional theater artists.