WRITING
Musicals, Musings, Etc.
A bookwriter and lyricist, Susannah is a member of BMI's Musical Theatre Writing Workshop. Her work has also appeared in The Daily Beast. Every so often, she threatens to write a series of romance novels--so if you like wine, folk music, and/or love, you may want to stay tuned for updates.
BISLAND & BLY
Music & Lyrics by Marialena DiFabbio | Book, Lyrics, & Add'l Music by Susannah Jones
It’s New York City in November 1889, and daily newspapers are racing to keep up with their readers’ appetites for the next big story, each one more sensational than the last. What will one day be called investigative journalism is just being born, and its twenty-five year old mother is Nellie Bly, beloved stunt girl and champion of working class women. In a very different part of the city, monthly magazines eschew public sensationalism in favor of private society intrigue, with arts & culture as elevating afterthoughts. Here, literary belle Elizabeth Bisland is celebrated for her beauty as she quietly strives for a better class of culture writing for women nationwide. With a score inspired by folk and contemporary musical theatre, Bisland & Bly is story that proves that women have dared to persist throughout the ages.
DIFABBIO & JONES
Musical Theatre Writing Team
Susannah has been writing with composer/lyricist Marialena DiFabbio since they started collaborating on Bisland & Bly in 2017. With a sound rooted in folk and classic musical theatre, paired with a desire to create stories about complex, female-identifying characters, they have been finalists for The Jonathan Larson Grant and The Dramatists Guild Fellowship.
Bisland & Bly is a two time O'Neill Festival semi-finalist, and has been featured in the Springworks Festival in Stratford, ON, The New York Musical Festival, The Redhouse Arts Center New Works Festival, and was developed in part at the Weston Playhouse Writer's Retreat.
The video above is of their song "Christmas Isn't Christmas," inspired by the holiday season and Die Hard.