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Susan Batson, an actor, writer, director, producer, teacher, and coach, has been described by the New Yorker as a "technician of the spirit." She has worked privately on film sets worldwide and at her Black Nexxus acting studios in New York and Hollywood with actors such as Nicole Kidman, Juliette Binoche, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx, Sean 'Diddy' Combs, Liv Tyler, Jennifer Connelly, and many others seeking authentic connections with their characters. Nicole Kidman, who has collaborated with Susan for over twelve years, praises her as an exceptionally insightful acting coach with "a hell of a lot of pure talent," while Oscar winner Juliette Binoche commends Susan's ability to "shake you like a tree and get the fruits down." Kidman publicly thanked Susan during her post-Oscar press conference for *The Hours* (2002), and Tom Cruise acknowledged her in his Golden Globes acceptance speech for *Magnolia* (1999).
Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, Batson began her journey into acting at Adele Thane's Boston Children's Theater. She graduated from Emerson College's Theater Arts Program and earned a John Hay Whitney Fellowship to study with Lee Strasberg, Uta Hagen, and Herbert Berghof in New York. A member of the original cast of *Hair*, she became a protégé of theater icons Joseph Papp and Harold Clurman, joined the Actor's Studio, and received the New York Drama Critics Award, LA Drama Critics Award, and an Obie Award. She has collaborated with writer/director Spike Lee on several films and produced the highly successful Broadway revival and television adaptation of *A Raisin in the Sun* (2007), starring Sean Combs.
Batson's mother, the late Ruth M. Batson, was a tenured psychiatry professor at Boston University, led the Massachusetts NAACP during the 1960s, was the first Black woman appointed to the Democratic National Committee, and helped design Boston's groundbreaking school desegregation program. Reflecting her mother's commitment to equal opportunity and education, Black Nexxus—co-run with Susan’s son Carl Ford—operates 365 days a year, and Susan Batson remains accessible to her dedicated clients around the clock.
Susan Batson authored *Truth: Personas, Needs, and Flaws In The Art of Building Actors and Creating Characters* and has been featured in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, and Backstage.
