Cirrus@Austlit

Sue Rider completed a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in York, United Kingdom (UK) and a Graduate Diploma in Drama at Manchester (UK). She has been a theatre director, actor, playwright, dramaturg and teacher, with experience in mainstream, community and educational theatre. In the 1980s she wrote and directed for the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild.

While in South Australia Rider worked with The Stage Company, Patch Theatre, Elder Conservatorium, South Australian Film Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Black Women in Focus, as well as lecturing at the University of Adelaide and South Australian College of Advanced Education. She was also the founding director of The Acting Company of South Australia. Rider became Artistic Director of La Boite Theatre, Brisbane, in 1993. In 1998 she went to Vietnam as part of a cultural exchange project in celebration of 25 years of political relations between Australia and Vietnam. There she worked as director with the Ho Chi Minh City Drama Theatre and spoke as an Australian delegate at a cultural forum in Hanoi.

Rider has also worked in Nigeria and the United Kingdom in opera, mainstream theatre, community theatre, theatre for young people and theatre in galleries. She has served as a committee member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council and as a member of the Queensland State Arts Advisory Committee, as well as External Examiner for Theatre and a member of the Faculty of Arts Assessment Committee of the University of Southern Queensland. In 1996 she was a finalist in the Executive Woman of the Year Award and was honoured with a Glugs of Gosh Award for 'Excellence in Theatre'. Rider became Adjunct Professor in the School of English, Media Studies and Art History at the University of Queensland in 2002.

In addition to the works listed on AustLit, Rider has written many other plays that have been performed but not published.