Susan Padveen

The Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department is delighted to welcome longtime faculty member Susan Padveen to the position of Interim Allen and Lynn Turner Chair of Theatre. Padveen, an associate professor, replaces former Chair Carin Silkaitis, who has joined the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, Alaska, as Dean of Arts & Sciences. Padveen previously served as the Columbia College Theatre Department’s Associate Chair and Artistic Director of the Mainstage Season under Silkaitis, who recommended Padveen to replace her. Prior to that, Padveen was the coordinator of the Theatre Department’s Theatre Directing program. Her appointment as Interim Chair of the Theatre Department was announced August 24, 2021, by Rosita Sands, Dean of Columbia College’s School of Fine and Performing Arts.

Padveen, a Columbia College Theatre Department faculty member for more than 20 years, holds an M.A. in Integrated Professional Studies from DePaul University in Chicago and a B.F.A. in Theatre Performance from Concordia University Chicago in River Forest, Illinois. She has been active in the Chicago area as a theatre director and administrator since the 1980s. Her extensive credits as a stage director include productions with the Neapolitans at the Viaduct Theatre, Polarity Ensemble Theatre, the Buffalo Theater Ensemble (professional company in residence at the College of DuPage), Pegasus Players, the National Jewish Theatre, and the Greenhouse Theatre Center. She is an Associate Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and a longtime member of the Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee‘s Artistic and Technical Team.