About Susan

SUSAN E MICKEY BIO (Costume Designer, Administrator, Professor) Susan Mickey is an accomplished costume designer with a career in theatre, film and television. Most recently Susan designed Rigoletto for Opera På Skäret in Kopparberg, Sweden. Her costume design for The Marriage of Figaro opened the 2016 season at the Lyric Opera Chicago.  She is the winner of a Carbonell Award for Don’t Stop The Carnival, two Joseph Jefferson Awards for School For Lies, and The Madness of George III, and recently the winner of the Michael Merritt award for lifetime achievement in collaboration. Susan’s costumes have graced the stage in almost every major regional theatre in America.  She has collaborated on over 35 world premiers with teams as diverse as: Kenny Leon and Pearl Cleage; Stephen King, John Mellencamp and T Bone Burnett; Jimmy Buffet and Herman Wouk.

Susan has enjoyed extended design relationships with The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Huntington Theatre in Boston and The Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, but her most lengthy artistic collaboration was with the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta where she designed over 58 productions spanning 30 years. Her work in television and film includes Miss Evers Boys for HBO and Mama Flora’s Family for CBS.  She is the author of several books on sewing and home décor.  In  2004 Susan joined the design faculty of The Department of Theatre and Dance at The University of Texas where she was the Senior Associate Chair.  Their she was awarded a Regents Teaching Excellence Award winner and held the Susan Menafee Ragan Professorship in Fine Arts. Since 2019 Susan has served as the Director of The School of Theatre at Boston University.