Student Testimonials
“Susan-Jane is an enthusiastic and encouraging teacher, who listens to her students and adjusts her teaching style to their needs. She draws from a deep well of knowledge and training in the art of acting – a rare and unique combination. As a theatre director, I found Susan-Jane’s class to be instrumental in understanding the emotional physicality and the inner work of acting. I am a director, and choose to take Susan-Jane’s class because of her unique approach to Stanislavski’s method – one which emphasized the psycho-physical approach – and as a way to expand my own vocabulary as a theatre director.
“Susan-Jane is wonderful to work with. I’ve taken voice lessons with her as well as her Inhabiting Shakespeare class and I’ve learned so much and feel stronger as an actor and a person. She is a compassionate, empowering, knowledgable teacher and mentor. SJ is really able to see you as an individual with individual needs and identify ways to work with you to free your voice, emotion and tension points. She has a very holistic approach and I’ve been really pleased by how much working on my voice with SJ has led to an overall increase in confidence as an actor, and as a person.”
Lissa Jariyasunant
“I fall into the category of shy presenter, and I am presenting weekly! After only one workshop with SJ, I noticed a significant shift. I use her techniques before every single speaking engagement. It’s made all the difference to me in terms of enjoying showing up in the world— as myself!”
Danusha Laméris, (Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz, CA 2018-2020, author of The Moons of August and Bonfire Opera)
“The Inhabiting Technique has given me a fresh and unique approach to delve into my emotional experiences safely and skillfully. I loved the active exploratory lab style of the class. I really like that we did not focus on a final product, but it was instead about our own personal experiences and relationship to the techniques given. Most importantly, as a teacher Susan-Jane is warm and patient, while still pushing her students to explore and push their limits. I would recommend her class to beginning and advanced actors.”
Rosella Bearden
“Susan-Jane Harrison embodies the best quality in an actor’s toolbox: generosity. What I mean by that is this: she is direct, kind, insightful when she works with you either in a class or one on one. Working with Susan-Jane can feel deceptively unlike work because it is so playful, but yet her insights to me have stuck to me through the years. For example, her insight that we had to find “physical solutions to emotional problems” in a monologue that I was working on has helped me countless times both in my acting and lay life.”
Larisa Shaterian
I found that Susan-Jane drew from a deep well of knowledge and combined many great techniques, including Linklater Voice, Inhabiting, and Stanislavski’s psycho-physical methods in a unique way that allowed each of us to flourish in scene performance. Personally, I benefited greatly from her vocal coaching. The Linklater voice work I found gave me a better sense of how to work with actors who have vocal blocks, as well as helped me to use the full range and power of my own voice in personal and professional life. Inhabiting I found to be a great tool to expand and train an emotional vocabulary and athleticism. I would highly-recommend Susan-Jane’s class to anyone who is serious about the craft of theatre and is looking to dive deeper in their understanding of “how to be” on the stage.”
Tatiana Gelfand
“Susan-Jane Harrison’s Inhabiting Technique was the most impactful acting class I have taken. Like many students, I felt restricted by my intellect and weighed down by the trying to remember lines, notes, blocking etc. This technique allowed me to bypass my intellect and the trying while helping me to discover the being. I now have tools that allow me to access authentic emotions with freedom and flexibility of expression. After working with Susan-Jane, I could see a path to the creative free fall every actor hopes to find; where scenes are not driven by words but rather brought to life with authentic human emotions. I feel like I have been given a secret weapon.”
Katherine Watson-Darwish
“Admittedly, I feel a bit cautious about expressing large emotions on stage. Frozen in fear of hitting a false note, I will more often downplay emotions rather than lean into them with full abandon. My experience with Susan-Jane Harrison’s Inhabiting Technique was profound in breaking through this wall. The breakthrough really began with the visualizing and drawing of the emotions on paper with the other student actors. This got us out of our rational analytical minds and in a direct experience with hands, markers and paper down to the ground…”
Bruce Bierman
Photo is by Eric Gillet
