Meet Avery and Susan

Avery Deutsch

Avery Deutsch is a playwright and actor based in Brooklyn, New York. She is the winner of Clubbed Thumb’s 2022 Biennial commission, The Hearth’s 2024 Virtual Retreat, and a 2023-2024 EST/ Sloan commission recipient. She has just completed an M.F.A. in Theatre (Playwriting) at The University of Texas at Austin, where she studied under Annie Baker, Jenn Kidwell, Kirk Lynn, and Hilary Bettis.

At UT, she taught Playwriting One for multiple semesters. Before that, she took courses in teaching pedagogy and worked as a Teaching Assistant. Before UT, she workshopped new plays with High Schoolers across Kentucky as an acting apprentice at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Susan Yassky

Susan Yassky (she/her) is a playwright and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Her full-length plays include JAKE (reading at Ensemble Studio Theatre, 2024), MANIFESTATIONS (EST/Youngblood Bloodworks Festival, 2024), A VARIATION (Seven Devils Playwrights Conference semi-finalist, 2024), and THE WOMEN’S CENTER (Bay Area Playwrights Festival semi-finalist, 2023). Her short plays include MYRMARACHNE and NIGEL! (EST/Sloan commission, 2023 and 2024). She is a current member of Youngblood. As an educator, she has taught playwriting at Saint Ann’s School and Writopia Lab. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she received the Chair’s Award for Excellence in Dramatic Writing. She received her BA in Theater Studies and Humanities from Yale College.