About Susan
SUSAN WATSON is a Broadway musical legend having starred as the quintessential ingénue of the 1960’s and 1970’s in the productions of THE FANTASTICKS (Luisa), BYE, BYE, BIRDIE (Kim MacAfee), CARNIVAL (Lili), BEN FRANKLIN IN PARIS (Janine), A JOYFUL NOISE (Jenny), CELEBRATION (Angel), NO, NO, NANETTE (Nanette) – and most recently in the 2011-2012 revival of Stephen Sondheim’s hit musical FOLLIES (Emily Whitman).
After completing high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Susan moved to New York City for a year at the Juilliard School of Music and there majored in singing and dancing before joining the London company of WEST SIDE STORY. Starring roles followed in OKLAHOMA (Laurey), CAROUSEL (Carrie), THE SOUND OF MUSIC (Maria), MY FAIR LADY (Eliza), GYPSY (Gypsy Rose Lee), WHERE’S CHARLIE (Amy), THE GRASS HARP (Dolly Talbo), and the stage plays ANY WEDNESDAY (Ellen), CHARLEY’S AUNT (Amy), and A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM (Viola).
In the 1980’s Susan co-produced and starred in BROADWAY CELEBRATION, a nationwide touring company saluting the songs of The Great American Songbook composed by America’s most famous composers, among them Jerome Kern, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Rodgers & Hart, Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, Lerner & Lowe and Jerry Herman. The success of the tour led to the recording of its songs on the CD, A BROADWAY CELEBRATION.
Susan’s cabaret performances in New York City and Los Angeles led in 2008 to the creation of her first solo CD, “Earthly Paradise – The Songs of Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt”, and in October of 2016 she released her latest CD of songs, “The Music Never Ends,” orchestrated and arranged by the gifted team of Michele Brourman and Stephan Oberhoff.
From 2017 through 2019, Susan regularly performed an hour-length program of songs from her “The Music Never Ends” CD to Los Angeles-based senior-citizen homes including the communities of Sunrise, Belmont, Brookdale, Meridian, The Village, and The Villa Gardens in Pasadena.
Susan has been married for over five decades to TV producer Norton Wright (“Sesame Street” and numerous primetime TV movies), and they have two adult, “showbiz” sons, TV producer-writer Rob Wright and CGI effects compositor Doug Wright.
For recreation, Susan’s international travels have taken her to Cuba, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Europe, Mexico, South America, Japan, China, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
Additional information via Susan’s website: susanwatsonmusic.com
MTG Show Credits
Fun Facts
I'm proud to be an MTG member because
in Los Angeles our company keeps the torch of the American musical burning bright for audiences of our generation and those to come.
Dream Role
Any time the curtain goes up.
Favorite Role I Have Played
Because in 1960 my role as teenager Kim MacAfee in BYE, BYE BIRDIE was my first Broadway credit, I fondly remember the role as the start of my career. In that, musical directed by Gower Champion and with a cast of stellar stars Dick Van Dyke, Chita Rivera, Paul Lynde, Charles Nelson Reilly, Dick Gautier, and Michael Pollard, I had a wonderful time learning. Now six decades later I still love watching the many revivals of the show in regional theaters and in high schools.
My Favorite Musical
THE FANTASTICKS, created by my dear Texas friends, writer/lyricist Tom Jones and composer Harvey Schmidt has been such an uplifting example of truth and simple beauty that it is no wonder that it is the world’s longest-running musical. I sang for their financial backers auditions back in 1959, played the starring role of ‘Luisa’ in the Hallmark Hall of Fame production on NBC TV in 1964 with its cast of Ricardo Montalban, John Davidson, Bert Lahr, and Stanley Holloway, and subsequently have directed several productions of the show in regional theater… Such fun trying to remember -- and succeeding.
Favorite MTG Show I Have Been In
The 2005 production of NO, NO, NANETTE, in which MTG dance aces, David Engel and Glenn Shiroma, rescued me with their crash course on Ruby Keeler’s tap routines as “Aunt Sue” from the original Broadway revival of 1973. Not in the Juilliard instruction book, David and Glenn sent me off to Home Depot to buy a 6-foot square of ¾-inch plywood that I then used as a tap-dance floor, hearing and practicing each tap as it was meant to be. My at-home rehearsals were a big success but did drive my neighbors a little crazy.
Funniest / Most Memorable Thing That's Happened to Me on Stage
In the original Broadway revival of NO, NO, NANETTE in 1973, I played the role of ‘Nanette’ and in the "Peach On The Beach” number I was required to dance atop a rolling 4-foot-tall wooden beach ball. It was risky because if I lost control of the ball, we could roll directly off stage and into the orchestra pit. Choreographer Donald Sadler solved the problem by repositioning all the chorus boys along the footlights strumming ukuleles ostensibly for fun but actually there to protect conductor Buster Davis and the orchestra from the possibility of my disastrous arrival in their laps. A couple of times, we got so close that the chorus boys, the audience — and Buster — gasped.
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