Theatre-maker, thinker, performer and interpreter.
My work is radical,
poetic and funny.
About Sue MacLaine
'what interests me is not the core but the potentialities of this core to multiply and expand infinitely: the diffusion of the core, its suppleness and elasticity' — Anaïs Nin, Diary 1, p.200
I have been creating performance and theatre since 1983, having founded 'No Boundaries Theatre Company' to produce work for the "September in the Pink" Lesbian and Gay Arts and Music Festival at the Oval House London, and then joining 'Scarlet Harlets Theatre Collective'. I left the company to join Kenneth Branagh's 'Renaissance Theatre Company', understudying and taking small parts in Look Back in Anger, A Midsummer Night's Dream, King Lear and the film Frankenstein.
In 1992 I began to learn British Sign Language, and in 1995 I began two years of full-time study at the Centre for Deaf Studies, University of Bristol. I have continued to work as a BSL/Eng interpreter (opens in a new tab) in tandem with my creative practice. In 2009 I undertook an MA in Life History & Life Writing at the University of Sussex and in 2011 returned to performance and performance making.
In 2019 I received a scholarship from the Literature, Film & Theatre Studies department of the University of Essex to pursue a practice-as-research PhD and was awarded my doctorate in 2025, entitled "From a Dead Place: Presence of Suspension in the Handling of Post-Traumatic Material in Performance Creation". The photograph above is from the practice performance "I Maybe Sometime" and the thesis abstract can be found in Resources.
I am now entering the fray of stand-up comedy…
- Wednesday 7 October 2026 — Comedy Bandits, The Railway, Clapham SW4 7UR (5-minute spot)
- Thursday 8 October 2026 — Downstairs at The Kings Head, N8 8AA (5-minute spot)
- Thursday 29 October 2026 — Angel Comedy Club, Camden Head, N1 8DY (5-minute spot)
- Wednesday 25 November 2026 — Bombanes, Brighton BN2 1RH (Sue MacLaine is Dabbling, work-in-progress)