Dr. Susan F. Clark

Three cheers go out to Director Sue Clark for not only staging a terrific production, but for organizing and harnessing the energies of 43 cast members, 13 production hands, and 18 professional musicians.The collaboration and camaraderie among Sue Clark, choreographer Jen Diedrich, musical director MaryAnn Lanier, accompanist Robert Humphreville '76, costumer Catherine Coursaget, and technical director Russ Swift were evident in every nuance of this carefully crafted production.

Susan F. ClarkSend email to Clark, Susan F.

NASHOBA PUBLISHING / JOHN LOVE, Top: Dr. Susan Clark and the Groton School's new performing arts center.
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GROTON -- Dr. Susan Clark, director of Groton School's Marion Danielson Campbell Performing Arts Center, knows very well what a great opportunity she has had in overseeing the design and construction of the newly-opened center.

By all accounts, she made herself and the school proud.

Although the center will not be officially dedicated until May, it hosted its first performance on Nov. 6, a scant two hours after the occupancy permit was issued.

For more than a year, passers-by watched steel work being erected, wondering what the building would become.When fleshed out, the steel skeleton blossomed into a stunning $18 million, 462-seat modern theater equipped with everything contained in Boston's Wang Center but built to a smaller scale.

"It's my baby," Clark said."I knew I'd never have a chance to perform multiple roles again.We're very excited."

The center was funded by private donations mostly from Groton School alumni.Clark was hired three and a half years ago and worked four and a half months with architectural design before construction started.

Large windows and white framework sweep in a semi-circle around a two-tiered foyer at the front of the brick building.The exterior matches the classic New England feel of the rest of the campus.
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Clark, who earned her doctorate in theater history from Tufts University, her Master of Theater from Emerson College and her bachelor in English and theater in Rockford, Ill., is both the performing arts director and a teacher.She has taught at Smith College and the University of Southern Maine, and she was head of theater at the Middlesex School in Concord.

"We're looking at a curriculum with play writing and play analysis for the English Department and acting and directing for the Arts Department," she said.

Groton School students have a vigorous afternoon activity schedule from 3:30 to 5 p.m., and they have evening time set aside for more.Clark is working with nine student directors who are each doing a one-act play to be performed in a One Act Festival in March during those periods.

She is currently directing an adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Tempest," set on the planet Saturn, 75 years from now but using the original text.
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"Theater is one art that brings together music, dance and the visual," Clark said."This center is good for theater and for life.Students learn to cooperate and to make something bigger than yourself."

The center's "other first event," as Clark describes it, will be on Martin Luther King Day when the Gabrielle Lansner & Company presents "Salt Chocolate."
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Clark said there will be a charge for tickets for that performance.However, she said those performances that do not require payment from someone outside the school will be free of charge to residents of Groton and surrounding communities.

"We want residents who wonder what they are going to do on a weekend to think of the Groton School's Performing Arts Center," she said."I hope it will be a force in the community.All performances are open to the public and all free."

Now that the Marion D. Campbell Performing Arts Center is up and running, Clark can focus more on her students and fostering theater.In a way, the arts center is the fulfillment of a dream any director, teacher or actor can appreciate.

"I have no plans to do anything else," Clark said.

RETURN TO TOP

GROTON -- Dr. Susan Clark, director of Groton School's Marion Danielson Campbell Performing Arts Center, knows very well what a great opportunity she has had in overseeing the design and construction of the newly-opened center.

By all accounts, she made herself and the school proud.

Although the center will not be officially dedicated until May, it hosted its first performance on Nov. 6, a scant two hours after the occupancy permit was issued.

For more than a year, passers-by watched steel work being erected, wondering what the building would become.When fleshed out, the steel skeleton blossomed into a stunning $18 million, 462-seat modern theater equipped with everything contained in Boston's Wang Center but built to a smaller scale.

"It's my baby," Clark said."I knew I'd never have a chance to perform multiple roles again.We're very excited."

NASHOBA PUBLISHING / JOHN LOVE, Top: Dr. Susan Clark and the Groton School's new performing arts center.
...
Clark was hired three and a half years ago and worked four and a half months with architectural design before construction started.

Large windows and white framework sweep in a semi-circle around a two-tiered foyer at the front of the brick building.The exterior matches the classic New England feel of the rest of the campus.
...
Clark, who earned her doctorate in theater history from Tufts University, her Master of Theater from Emerson College and her bachelor in English and theater in Rockford, Ill., is both the performing arts director and a teacher.She has taught at Smith College and the University of Southern Maine, and she was head of theater at the Middlesex School in Concord.

"We're looking at a curriculum with play writing and play analysis for the English Department and acting and directing for the Arts Department," she said.

Groton School students have a vigorous afternoon activity schedule from 3:30 to 5 p.m., and they have evening time set aside for more.Clark is working with nine student directors who are each doing a one-act play to be performed in a One Act Festival in March during those periods.

She is currently directing an adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Tempest," set on the planet Saturn, 75 years from now but using the original text.
...
"Theater is one art that brings together music, dance and the visual," Clark said."This center is good for theater and for life.Students learn to cooperate and to make something bigger than yourself."

The center's "other first event," as Clark describes it, will be on Martin Luther King Day when the Gabrielle Lansner & Company presents "Salt Chocolate."
...
Clark said there will be a charge for tickets for that performance.However, she said those performances that do not require payment from someone outside the school will be free of charge to residents of Groton and surrounding communities.

"We want residents who wonder what they are going to do on a weekend to think of the Groton School's Performing Arts Center," she said."I hope it will be a force in the community.All performances are open to the public and all free."

Now that the Marion D. Campbell Performing Arts Center is up and running, Clark can focus more on her students and fostering theater.In a way, the arts center is the fulfillment of a dream any director, teacher or actor can appreciate.

"I have no plans to do anything else," Clark said.

RETURN TO TOP

"The play is one of Brecht's parable plays, and we picked it because it had excellent roles for the students and at the same time, it posed essential human questions," explained Susan Clark, the Groton School's director of theater.

In "The Good Person of Szechwan," which has sometimes been known in the United States as "The Good Woman of Szechwan," a kindly prostitute offers shelter to a trio of gods looking for one good human being.Deciding they have found her, they reward the woman with cash that ends up complicating her life.

By holding a lecture immediately before performance of the play, Clark said it was hoped that it would help people to "put the play in context and spark questions that would create interesting ways of looking at the play."
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According to Clark, Groton School's company of about 20 students put on three plays each year and invite the general public to attend.A new 460-seat performing arts center is currently being constructed on the school's campus with a completion date of September 2004.

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James Church; also Karen Tuomi, Community Education and Sue Clark, drama instructor, Groton School.

GROTON -- Dr. Susan Clark, director of Groton School's Marion Danielson Campbell Performing Arts Center, knows very well what a great opportunity she has had in overseeing the design and construction of the newly-opened center.