Born and raised in Aiea, Susan Soon He Stanton got an early start toward her successful career as a playwright, author and screenwriter when she began to explore theater while attending Punahou School.
Now she can add Emmy Award winner to that list. Last month, Stanton received the prestigious television award for her work as a producer/writer of the HBO series “Succession,” a show about a family’s battles over its global media empire. The show won for outstanding drama series.
While still in high school, she studied playwriting with Daniel A. Kelin II, director of drama education at the Honolulu Theatre for Youth. Stanton continued her training at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. She went on to get a Master of Fine Arts at the David Geffin School of Drama at Yale (formerly the Yale School of Drama). She supported her studies with some day jobs along the way.
A day job at a New York City hotel provided the inspiration for “we, the invisibles,” Stanton’s surrealistic take on a 2011 sexual assault case involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, and a foreign-born hotel maid. Stanton’s experience gave her first-hand knowledge about the lives of hotel workers, which helped develop the play. The show was presented in Hawaii by Kailua Onstage Arts in 2019.
In 2018, Stanton’s work brought her to the attention of “Succession” showrunner Jesse Armstrong. Stanton has been part of the HBO show’s creative team ever since.
In addition to winning the Emmy last month, Stanton received two Writers Guild of America Awards in March — one as a member of the “Succession” production team and a second as co-writer of the episode titled “Retired Janitors of Idaho.”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What made that episode such a standout?
Well, I think that Jesse (Armstrong) put that episode forward, which was very kind. That award means a lot because it’s voted for by fellow writers. So it’s other writers in the Writers Guild who vote for it.
How much control do you have over the storyline?
It’s a collaborative effort. I think that Jesse has the greatest understanding (of the show), but we talk a lot. It’s really big-sky thinking and we talk about different things happening in the world. There’s personal stories, we talk about the different characters … and so it’s very, it’s very organic. You do have a say in it, but you also help build it and the progression goes from kind of big-sky thinking to getting a series arc.
I guess I’ll say this is a mechanical question, but does Jesse decide “OK, you’re going to write this episode.” How does that work?
Sometimes there’s very practical concerns, people’s schedule and availability. Sometimes a person might naturally have a really strong interest towards a certain topic or they might have done a lot of research on that. Sometimes it’s also logistics … being New York based, I’ll always, generally I’ve so far always gotten to (write) New York episodes. Sometimes there’s episodes that are set in the U.K., and so it makes sense for one of the British writers who have a family there. It’s just much easier for them to kind of be on their home turf.
Do you have a preference: writing plays — you are in complete control, and writing for “Succession” — you’re part of a team? How do those two roles balance for you?
I love to toggle between the two. I think that as a playwright, it helps your writing and your singular voice and you’re very in charge of it. But everything’s on a smaller scale, or I should say, rather than the smaller scale, more intimate scale. And then for TV, it’s part of a large part of this huge village, and it’s pretty wild, not just writing but across all these other departments. And so it’s very thrilling, but in ways, certain things are the same.
Do you have a five-year plan or a 10-year plan of things that you want to do?
I love telling stories set in Hawaii, also telling Asian American stories, that’s important to me, female lead stories … I think I’ve been trying to consider continuing to produce (television shows). … I’m very happy to be able to tell stories and to work with people who are extremely inspiring and exciting to collaborate with. So I’m kind of just taking things as I can, but I think my hope is to produce more things and also try to support other people, especially in Hawaii, into getting their films made.
