Susie Sutton

Susie Sutton was an American actress who worked in theater and film and appeared on Broadway between 1928 and 1938. She died in February 1956.

Sutton's earliest performing experience came through church and Sunday school singing and stage work. During her childhood she appeared in a production of "Little Buttercup," and between 1913 and 1915 she presented comedic drama monologues at the Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis, including pieces titled "The Maid" and "Italian Woman." These early years established the range she would carry throughout her career, which encompassed comedy, drama, singing, dancing, and character sketches.

In 1917 Sutton joined the Lafayette Players, a prominent African American theater company, and remained with them until 1922. Over the course of those five years she became recognized as the leading comedic figure within the troupe. After departing the Lafayette Players, she moved to New York and joined productions organized by showrunner I. M. Weingarden. The Follow Me show, which ran from 1922 to 1924, proved highly successful, and Sutton was credited as the lead. The production's popularity caused the company to be informally known as the "Follow Me company" in subsequent presentations. A follow-up production called Keep It Up was staged at the Lafayette Theater, where Sutton performed a singing piece titled "The Bridge of Sighs," though the show did not match the success of its predecessor. The company later mounted the Bon Ton Revue beginning in 1925, continuing Sutton's association with Weingarden's organization.

In 1926 Sutton established her own vaudeville troupe, the Susie Sutton Company, performing on the TOBA Circuit and in Nashville, Tennessee. She simultaneously continued performing with the Lafayette Players on an intermittent basis at the Alhambra Theater. When the Lafayette Players relocated to Los Angeles in August 1928, Sutton chose to remain at the Alhambra Theater and became part of the Alhambra Players. That same year she appeared in the Broadway play Meek Mose, playing the role of Miss Minnie, and also appeared in the film The Midnight Ace.

Her most celebrated stage role came in 1930 when she played Noah's wife in the Broadway production of The Green Pastures, a performance that earned significant critical praise. She reprised the role of Noah's wife in a 1935 production of Noah. Her other Broadway credits include Stevedore, in which she played Bertha Williams during its April through July 1934 run, and Haiti in 1938. Earlier in her film career she had appeared in The Brute in 1920.

In 1943 Sutton was among several former Lafayette Players members who participated in an effort to recreate a theater company system modeled on the original Lafayette Players organization. She fell ill in late 1955 and died the following February.