Jeff Szusterman

Bio

Jeff Szusterman is an award-winning actor, director, and educator with over 25 years of experience across the live performance and screen industries. A graduate of Toi Whakaari o Aotearoa: NZ Drama School, Jeff worked to acclaim on Wellington stages before travelling to the US to train and work with Shakespeare & Co. in Massachusetts. He then lived in Portland, OR, he acted on many stages there winning a Portland Drama Critics “Drammy” for Best Actor as Wilfred Owen in ‘Not About Heroes’. He also started working with young people in the playwriting program The Haven Project and was instrumental in establishing the subsequent iteration Playwrite Inc.

Returning to Auckland, NZ, in 2004, Jeff continued to act in the theatre, notably at Silo, where, among other roles, he played Dr Cukrowicz in ‘Suddenly, Last Summer’ and Mason Marzac in ‘Take Me Out’ - noted as one of the best of 2007 by theatre critics and audiences alike. At Silo, Jeff also started directing with the acclaimed production of Neil Labute’s ‘This Is How It Goes’.

On screen Jeff recent credits include ‘Outrage’, ‘Juniper’, ‘The Gulf S2’ and, most recently as Siggy - the Emanuel family's father - in both seasons of the hit comedy ‘Kid Sister’.

Jeff also runs the highly successful AYA Drama, is a dialect coach (‘Klara and the Sun’, ‘Deep Water’ etc) and is the dialogue coach on ‘Spartacus: House of Ashur’. August 2024 also sees Jeff become a published author with his graphic novel ‘Duffy and the Bullies’ hitting shelves all around NZ (for starters). Jeff wrote the words and the award-winning Ant Sang drew the pictures. ‘Duffy and the Bullies’ is an adaptation of the play by Lauren Jackson ‘Duffy and the Cloak Bay Bully’ that Jeff developed and directed as part of his ongoing work with Duffy Books In Homes. This is to be the first in a new series and is published by Oratia Media.

Jeff was raised Jewish, of Polish-Ukrainian descent.