Subscriber Event
Coffee, Tea, & breakfast refreshments will be provided. Doors open at 10:30am
Tickets for this event are extremely limited, so please RSVP below to guarantee your spot for this exciting Subscriber Q&A.
About the panel
NINA ESSMAN is a Partner at 321 Theatrical Management and is currently represented on Broadway, nationally, and internationally by Wicked, as well as last year’s Tony winning Kimberly Akimbo, and Gutenberg! The Musical! on Broadway. Previous credits include Suzan-Lori Park’sTopdog/Underdog, A Strange Loop, What the Constitution Means to Me, The SpongeBob Musical, War Paint, Oh, Hello, Fully Committed, Fun Home, If/Then, Peter and the Starcatcher, Bring It On, Next to Normal, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Bat Boy: The Musical, and The Vagina Monologues. Early in her career, Nina was the original Line Producer on Disney’s The Lion King.
Nina is an active member of the Broadway League, and is a founding board member of Detroit Public Theatre, where she previously served as Board Chair. She recently helped create The Sweets Factory Fellowship in Broadway General Management and Producing in partnership with the Epic Theatre Ensemble. The year-long paid fellowship is open to New York City High School seniors currently enrolled in the Epic NEXT Arts Leadership initiative, providing students the opportunity to work alongside leaders in the theatre industry as they gain an intensive look at commercial theatre.
Nina attended Smith College and received a B.A. from Colorado College and a J.D. from Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. She lives in New York City.
RACHEL SUSSMAN (Producer) is a Tony Award-winning creative producer, educator, and entrepreneur who believes deeply in elevating human stories that challenge existing systems and create more space for civic engagement and empathy. She is a co-founder of The MITTEN Lab, an early career theatre residency program in her native Michigan, as well as The Business of Broadway, an educational venture that democratizes commercial producing knowledge to transform the way artists and producers collaborate. Broadway producing credits include: Just for Us, Parade (Tony Award), Prima Facie, and What the Constitution Means to Me (Tony nom, Pulitzer Prize finalist). Next up: Suffs on Broadway. A former WP Theater Lab Time Warner Foundation Fellow, Rachel was the recipient of the 2018-2019 Prince Fellowship in Creative Producing, founded by Hal Prince in conjunction with Columbia University and named one of Variety’s 2023 “10 to Watch on Broadway.” She is a graduate of the Commercial Theater Institute and a University Honors Scholar alumna of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University's School of the Arts, BerkleeNYC, and NYU Tisch. www.rachel-sussman.com
CELIA HOTTENSTEIN is originally from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area in Pennsylvania. She is currently playing Glinda on the National Tour of Wicked. Broadway: Wicked (Ensemble, u/s Glinda and Nessarose). National tour: The Phantom of the Opera (Christine Daaé alternate). Off-Broadway: Desperate Measures. Regional: Goodspeed Opera House, Virginia Stage Company, SpeakEasy Stage Company. She received a BFA in Musical Theater from The Boston Conservatory.