Susan Stroman facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Susan Stroman
Stroman in 2007
Born	(1954-10-17) October 17, 1954 (age 70) Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.
Occupation	Choreographer, performer, theatre director
Years active	1970s–present
Spouse(s)	Mike Ockrent (1996–1999, his death)

Susan P. Stroman, born on October 17, 1954, is a famous American director, choreographer, and performer for the theater. She has worked on many well-known shows. Some of her most famous theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, and The Producers.

She has won many awards for her amazing work. She has won five Tony Awards, which are like the Oscars for theater. Four of these were for Best Choreography (creating dances), and one was for Best Director of a Musical for The Producers. She has also won two Laurence Olivier Awards, which are major theater awards in the UK. In 2014, she was honored by being added to the American Theater Hall of Fame in New York City.

Early Life and First Steps

Susan Stroman was born in Wilmington, Delaware. Her father, who played the piano, introduced her to show tunes early on. She started learning to dance at age five, focusing on jazz, tap, and ballet. She studied dance with James Jamieson in Wilmington.

After high school, she studied English at the University of Delaware. During this time, she also performed, choreographed, and directed shows in local community theaters.

In 1976, after graduating, she moved to New York City to pursue her dreams. Her first professional performance was in a show called Hit the Deck in 1977. Later that year, she joined the national tour of Chicago. This was her first time working with the famous composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb.

Her first show on Broadway was in 1979, as a dancer in Whoopee!. By 1980, she was an assistant director, assistant choreographer, and dance captain for the Broadway show Musical Chairs. Susan wanted to create shows, not just perform in them. So, she started focusing on directing and choreographing. She worked in smaller places, directing and choreographing for various industrial shows, club acts, and commercials.

Her Amazing Career

Theater Work

1987-2000: Becoming Famous

Susan Stroman's big chance as a choreographer came in 1987. She worked on an Off-Broadway show called Flora the Red Menace. Her work there was noticed by Hal Prince, a very famous director. He hired her to create dances for his opera Don Giovanni.

She continued to work with Kander and Ebb, creating the hit Off-Broadway musical And the World Goes 'Round in 1991. In 1992, she choreographed a show for Liza Minnelli and even got an Emmy nomination for it! Later that year, she worked with her future husband, Mike Ockrent, on the Broadway musical Crazy for You. This show won the Tony Award for Best Musical, and Susan won her first Tony Award for Best Choreography.

In 1994, Stroman won her second Tony Award for her work on a new version of Show Boat. She added many creative dance parts to the show. She researched the time period carefully and learned that African-Americans invented the Charleston dance. She used this in her choreography to show how popular dances spread. In 1994, she also worked with Mike Ockrent again on A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden. This show ran for 10 years! She also choreographed Big, The Musical (1996) and Steel Pier (1997). In 1999, her choreography for Oklahoma! in London won her a second Olivier Award. Sadly, her husband Mike Ockrent passed away in December 1999.

After this, she focused on her work. She directed and choreographed her first Broadway show as a director, the 2000 revival of The Music Man. At the same time, she started working on a "dance play" called Contact with John Weidman. This show opened in 1999 and later moved to a bigger theater, where it was called a musical. It won the 2000 Tony Award for Best Musical, and Stroman won her third Tony Award for choreography. Contact even won an Emmy Award in 2003 when it was shown on TV. For Lincoln Center Theater, Stroman also directed and choreographed Thou Shalt Not (2001) and The Frogs (2004).

2001-Present: A Leading Figure

In 2001, Susan Stroman directed and choreographed the musical The Producers by Mel Brooks. This show was a huge success! It won a record twelve Tony Awards. Stroman won her fourth and fifth Tony Awards for directing and choreography. She was the first woman to win both awards on the same night! In 2005, she directed a movie version of the show.

She worked with Mel Brooks again in 2007 on the musical Young Frankenstein. In 2017, they brought a new version of the show to London.

She directed and choreographed the musical Happiness in 2009. She also directed and choreographed The Scottsboro Boys, which opened in 2010. This show received 12 Tony Award nominations. It has been performed in many theaters across the United States and in London.

In 2010, she co-directed Paradise Found with Hal Prince. She also directed and choreographed Big Fish in 2013, a musical based on a popular book and movie.

In 2014, she directed and choreographed an opera called The Merry Widow for the Metropolitan Opera. She also worked with Woody Allen on a musical version of his film Bullets Over Broadway, which opened on Broadway in 2014.

Stroman directed and choreographed Little Dancer in 2014. She later reworked this show, and it opened in Seattle in 2019 as Marie, Dancing Still. She also co-directed Prince of Broadway with Hal Prince, a show celebrating his career. This show premiered in Tokyo in 2015 and later came to Broadway in 2017.

In recent years, she directed the play Dot (2016) and The Beast in the Jungle (2018). In 2022, Stroman directed the Broadway play POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great ... Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. In 2023, her production of Crazy For You moved to London's West End after a successful run.

Her upcoming projects include a musical based on the TV series Smash and a play called Left on Tenth.

Dance Performances

In 2004, Susan Stroman made history by being the first woman to choreograph a full-length ballet for the New York City Ballet. This ballet, called Double Feature, is still performed by the company today.

She had previously worked with the New York City Ballet in 1999, creating a piece called Blossom Got Kissed. She later expanded this piece into a new ballet called For the Love of Duke in 2011.

In 1997, she created a dance piece called But Not for Me for the Martha Graham Company. In 2008, she created Take Five…More Or Less for The Pacific Northwest Ballet, combining jazz music with classical ballet.

Television and Film Work

Susan Stroman has also appeared on television. She played herself in the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm, where she directed Larry David and David Schwimmer in a fake production of The Producers. She returned to the show in 2017 to choreograph a musical called Fatwa!.

She has also appeared on the Food Network's Barefoot Contessa show, as she is a close friend of the host, Ina Garten.

In film, Stroman received an award for her choreography in the movie Center Stage (2000). In 2004, she directed the film version of The Producers.

Awards and Honors

Susan Stroman has received many awards throughout her career. Here are some of the most important ones:

Stroman received the Oscar Hammerstein Award in 2018 for her lifetime achievements in musical theater. She has also been named Glamour Magazine's Woman of the Year (2001) and received the George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater (2002). In 2012, she received the Sackler Center First Award, which honors amazing women who are leaders in their fields.

In 2002, she was recognized by the New York Public Library as a "Library Lion" for her achievements in art and culture. In 2014, she was added to New York City's Theater Hall of Fame.

The University of Delaware gave her an honorary degree in 2005.

Stage Productions

Theater

• 1980 Musical Chairs (Assistant Director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 1987 Flora the Red Menace (Choreographer) (Off-Broadway)
• 1989 Don Giovanni (Choreographer) (New York City Opera)
• 1990 A Little Night Music (Choreographer) (New York City Opera)
• 1991 And The World Goes 'Round (Choreographer) (Off-Broadway)
• 1992 Liza Minnelli – Stepping Out At Radio City (Choreographer)
• 1992 110 in the Shade (Choreographer) (New York City Opera)
• 1992 Crazy for You (Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 1993 Crazy for You (Choreographer) (West End)
• 1994 Show Boat (Choreographer) (Toronto/Broadway)
• 1994 Picnic (Choreographer of Musical Interludes) (Broadway)
• 1994 A Christmas Carol (Choreographer) (Madison Square Garden)
• 1996 Big (Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 1997 Steel Pier (Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 1998 Show Boat (Choreographer) (West End)
• 1998 Oklahoma! (Choreographer) (West End)
• 1999 Contact (Director/Choreographer) (Off-Broadway)
• 2000 The Music Man (Director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 2000 Contact (Director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 2001 The Producers (Director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 2001 Thou Shalt Not (Director/Choreographer/creator) (Broadway)
• 2002 Oklahoma! (Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 2002 Contact (Director/Choreographer) (West End)
• 2004 The Frogs (Director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 2004 The Producers (Director/Choreographer) (West End)
• 2005 Dedication or The Stuff of Dreams (Choreographer of Musical Interludes) (Off-Broadway)
• 2007 Young Frankenstein (Director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 2008 Happiness (Director/Choreographer) (Off-Broadway)
• 2010 The Scottsboro Boys (Director/Choreographer) (Off-Broadway)
• 2010 Paradise Found (Co-director/Choreographer)
• 2010 The Scottsboro Boys (Director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 2013 Big Fish (Director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 2014 Bullets over Broadway (Director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 2014 Little Dancer (Director/Choreographer) Kennedy Center
• 2015 The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville (Director/Choreographer) (Off-Broadway)
• 2015 Prince of Broadway (Co-director/Choreographer) Tokyo
• 2016 Dot (Director) (Off-Broadway)
• 2017 Prince of Broadway (Co-director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 2017 Young Frankenstein (Director/Choreographer) (West End)
• 2018 Beast in the Jungle (Director/Choreographer) (Off-Broadway)
• 2019 Marie, Dancing Still (Director/Choreographer) (Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre)
• 2022 POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great ... Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive (Director) (Broadway)
• 2023 Crazy For You (Director/Choreographer) (West End Transfer)
• 2023 New York, New York: A New Musical (Director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
• 2024 Left On Tenth (Director) (Broadway)

Dance

• 1997 But Not for Me (Martha Graham Company)
• 1999 Blossom Got Kissed (New York City Ballet)
• 2004 Double Feature: The Blue Necklace and Makin' Whoopee (New York City Ballet)
• 2008 Take Five...More or Less (Pacific Northwest Ballet)
• 2011 For the Love of Duke (New York City Ballet)

Opera

• 2014 The Merry Widow (Director/Choreographer) (The Metropolitan Opera)
• 2015 The Merry Widow (Director/Choreographer) (The Lyric Opera of Chicago)

Images for kids

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See Also

In Spanish: Susan Stroman para niños