Susana Cook is among the best artists working in America, doing cultural work that will transform the way we see things.
– MARTHA WILSON, FRANKLIN FURNACE
Born in Argentina, Susana Cook is a New York based performance artist who has been writing and producing original work for over 20 years. She has presented over 17 original plays in New York and around the world. Susana writes and directs all her shows and performs in them with her company . Her work is bold and funny, cleverly tackling racism, homophobia and animal rights. Her cast is comprised mostly of minority and queer women. Her work has been presented in numerous performance spaces in New York City, including Dixon Place, PS. 122, W.O.W Cafe Theater, Ubu Rep, Theater for the New City, The Puffin Room and The Kitchen. She also performed internationally in Spain, France, India, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Canada and at several colleges and universities around the country.
Some of her latest shows are : Run! it’s getting ugly, Non-Consensual Relationships with ghosts, Conversations with Humans, We Are Caligula,The Funeral of the Cow, The Homophobes, The Fury of the Gods, Homeland Insecurities, The idiot King, The Values Horror Show, 100 Years of Attitude, Dykenstein, Hamletango, Prince of Butches, Gross National Product, Hot Tamale, Conga Guerrilla Forest, The Fraud, Butch Fashion Show in the Femme Auto Body Shop, Rats:The Fantasy of Extermination and Tango Lesbiango.
She also received awards from New York Foundation for the Arts, Arts International, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, The Franklin Furnace Archives, The Puffin Foundation and INTAR.
Her work is archived at the Digital Video Library of The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics of New York University.
The Shows
RUN! It’s Getting Ugly (2019)
Homerun is a monologue about God and home runs that Susana Cook performs playing a guitar. The solo piece was inspired by a commentary by a famous baseball player that Susana saw on TV, in which the player presented home runs as “a God-giving thing.” In the monologue, Susana humorously locates this “gift” in inadequate contexts like Argentina, where baseball is not a popular sport like in the United States; and she also imagines a female protagonist who, despite her talent, would not make it to the major league because of her gender. “Homerun” was part of “Rivers of Honey, Women’s of Color Cabaret,” held at WOW Theater Café in New York City.
NON-Consensual Relationships with Ghosts (2017)
Written and Directed by Susana Cook @ La mama. 2017
Continue Reading NON-Consensual Relationships with Ghosts (2017)
THE FUNERAL OF THE COW (2012)
The Funeral of the Cow, a post-modern drama of the post-modern, creates a melancholic satire about trans-species, a hypnotizing world of dramatic, melodramatic and post-dramatic narratives that delve into the essence of humans, non-humans and the rest of us.
THE HOMOPHOBES, A CLOWN SHOW (2011)
A misunderstood miracle shakes a conservative congregation’s values to its core: their beloved pastor becomes the center of a spectacular scandal. The resulting firestorm will forever shatter their notions of sex, gender and intercourse between animate beings. A transcendent trans-comedy of errors featuring mad ministers, Saturdayanic and divine interventions, confused angels and maybe even the antichrist.
THE FURY OF THE GODS (2010)
The Fury of the Gods is an exercise in pop blasphemy. An ecclesiastical experiment in heathenism. A sharp, biting satire that skewers the sacred. Written during the dark era of Bush’s government and the ascent of the right-wing theocracy in the US. this performance looks at and satirizes the center from the point of view of the periphery, by claiming a right to self- representation onstage.
The unpatriotic act: Homeland inSECURITIES (2007)
The unPatriotic Act: Homeland inSecurities is a solo performance on the spectacles of nationalism and homophobia that combines political satire and dark humor to unveil the links between the horrors unleashed by the repressive military dictatorship in Argentina and the current Bush regime in the United States.
Continue Reading The unpatriotic act: Homeland inSECURITIES (2007)
Workshops
THEATRICALITIES OF GENDER: “HUMORING” HOMOPHOBIA
What is political theater? What is apolitical theater? What makes theater political? How can you create political performance?