“Suzman is a major classical actress; she is also a born teacher….Beneath her flame-coloured hair, Suzman burned, and her students duly caught fire….she persistently came out with striking, stimulating remarks with workshop snippets of Much Ado, As You Like It , and Twelfth Night .”— Benedict Nightingale, The London Times

“A veritable powerhouse, Suzman proceeded to open doors for her students—letting in not only a breath of fresh air, but a whirlwind of electrical vortices at times, as she had her young students on their knees, firing alternate lines at each other or suddenly reversing roles to ‘pressure cook' excitement. The feline Ms. Suzman, with high drama in every inflection, spoke with all the conviction of someone who'd spent many long years thinking about these lines—which made her able to breathe life into the most pedestrian of interpretations.” —Daily Mail

“Suzman, an admirably dignified, handsome and unassuming mentor, injected life into less-than-lively performances, through brusque interjections, which turned the set speech into something fascinating. Her discourses to her class were full of wisdom and humility.” —The Guardian

“Totally and incisively in charge, her unscripted preamble is a dramatic lesson in itself with all the right places to create a dramatic effect you can cut with a knife. Her dissertation on the difference between tragedy and comedy is masterly.”— Sunday London Times

"Janet Suzman's fiery, exacting approach to getting her actors to nail the nuances of the text."--LIBRARY JOURNAL

“Poetry is compression. Any physicist will tell you that compression yields great power. The impression of power in reserve is the single most riveting quality in a performer.”—Janet Suzman

“Scansion is not to be wrestled with like an enemy, but embraced, like a friend. It's an indulgence to ignore structure. Would you ignore the time signature in music?”—Janet Suzman

“It is the vowels that act as the conduit for emotion. The more open and flexible they are, the more the consonants can be used as choppers and sling-shots to send them on their way. “ —Janet Suzman

“Textual mastery liberates the voice, the actor's Stradivarius. It responds to clarification with the same eagerness as the mind, because the emotions have an unimpeded conduit once the debris of obfuscation and generalization has been cleared away."—Janet Suzman

“We are servants to these works. They need a certain humility from us. I do not mean subservience; I mean according them the respect they need to rule over our hearts and sensibilities.” —Janet Suzman

Janet Suzman's portrayal of the Russian Czarina in Nicholas and Alexandra won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She became an established star of the London stage after graduating from LAMBDA in the late 1960s through her association with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Suzman distinguished herself in the RSC production of THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, and praise for her acting was sustained for her Portia in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE and her Ophelia in HAMLET. She became one of the RSC's leading players, appearing opposite such major figures as Ben Kingsley, Patrick Stewart and Alan Howard. Suzman appeared with the RSC in BBC productions of THREE SISTERS, MACBETH, and HEDDA GABLER.

She starred opposite Alan Bates in the film A DAY IN THE DEATH OF JOE EGG and triumphed onstage in ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, which was filmed and aired in the USA on ABC. Ms. Suzman starred in a British TV adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's SAINT JOAN. She was the star of Peter Greenaway's THE DRAUGHTSMAN'S CONTRACT. She had the featured role in Federico Fellini's AND THE SHIP SAILS ON. She supported Michael Gambon in the Dennis Potter mini-series THE SINGING DETECTIVE. She played Donald Sutherland's wife in Euzhan Palcy's anti-apartheid drama, A DRY WHITE SEASON, and played Lady Edwina Mountbatten in the six-part biography, LORD MOUNTBATTEN: The Last Viceroy.

Ms. Suzman is also a distinguished stage director and teacher.

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