Today we’d like to introduce you to Sutheshna Mani.
Hi Sutheshna, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’m from San Diego, CA born in Baltimore, Maryland to immigrants from Kerala, India. We moved to San Diego when I was around three years old.
I grew up in Poway Unified School District, went to Deer Canyon, then Mesa Verde and finally Westview High School.
When I was six years old, my parents enrolled me in Bharatanatyam classes (Indian dance form originally from Tamil Nadu) which I went on to learn for 10-12 years, and where I would cite as a birthplace for my infatuation with performing, acting, storytelling and expression. In Bharatanatyam, I told stories within Hinduism from thousands of years ago, with illustrative eye and hand movements, and methodically set out rhythms that combined physical agility and and musical mathematics! I am profoundly grateful to this day that my parents had me do dance at that young of an age, I believe it trained in me an ability to adapt to many different dance styles, a skill that has helped me on stage for years to come.
I auditioned for plays and musicals all throughout High School, doing one or two ensemble parts, until Senior year of High School, I auditioned for The Drowsy Chaperone, and I was cast as Chaperone. That was the first validating moment for me, and I loved every minute of rehearsing, taking direction and performing, even when I was so nervous. I sang for the first time in front of my classmates during a school talent show my senior year and ended up winning the talent show. It was a moment in my life where I felt pretty seen by my classmates. And I felt good about it.
Not getting into a top UC school was a big failure for me because that was a big promise I made to family, was to get into a stellar school. I got into SDSU and went there for two years, meeting some of the best professors in Journalism and making two lifelong friends. I studied hard and transferred to Cornell University, a vastly different environment! I majored in Communication, sang in the Cornell Jazz Voices, worked on the Programming Board to bring comedians to the school, and worked as a Student Research Assistant in the GRIP (group and interpersonal communication lab) with Professor Poppy McLeod. I never had time to really do theatre, so Jazz Voices was my artistic outlet.
When I graduated college, I came back to San Diego as friends moved back to their hometowns or pursued jobs in New York City. I came back, applying to job after job living at my parent’s house. Having graduated from Cornell, I felt I knew I wanted to get back into theatre, so I did my first post-college show at Star Theatre Co. in Oceanside, playing an ancestor in Adams Family Musical. I went through interview after interview, before being hired at a marketing agency in downtown San Diego, after first being beat by another candidate, who then opted out of the position.
For the next three years, I would audition at almost every theatre around San Diego, from Vista to Chula Vista. Getting many no’s and some yes’s—at first the no’s would hit my ego, but I learned that every audition is an opportunity to be seen. Even if you don’t get a role, you might not have fit the role in the Director’s eyes, but you might fit another role in another show they plan to direct. I struggled a lot with feeling worthy when auditioning for theatre shows, especially early on in 2017 and 2018. I felt like I didn’t have the right look. There aren’t any shows with South Asian characters, and if there are, they’re usually some sort of Dickens-era or Colonialist era character that portrayed not-so-appealing stereotypes of South Asians. But I told myself that I didn’t care whether a blonde-haired blue-eyed girl played that character on Broadway, I could play it just as well and bring my own unique persona to that character.
I went from playing ensemble dance roles to small speaking roles as Annelle in Steel Magnolias at PowPac to Extraordinary Girl in American Idiot at OB Playhouse, performing in the WoW festival by La Jolla Playhouse doing small one act plays and vignettes, to now playing Janet in Rocky Horror and learning lines and lines of Shakespeare as Adriana in Comedy of Errors (Coronado Playhouse) for my first Shakespearean debut!
I lost my job twice, once in 2019 and then again in 2020 due to COVID. It made me revisit what my Plan A and Plan B was, and I realized I was living my Plan B. I didn’t want to do the PPC Ad Management agency life and decided to try my hand at freelancing. I went from 1 client to then acquiring two more via Upworks. I poured my creative energy into building up a freelance business, creating jewelry, and opening an Etsy shop called BjewlDBySuthe where I sell necklaces and bracelets, and creating my blog called suthecreates.com, and investing in Acting classes and music lessons.
Quarantine, thanks to the safety and stability my parents offered me after losing my job, was hard but it also helped me refocus. I decided I wanted to train in acting. I interviewed MFA students from the top schools in the country and asked them for their advice on a quality audition and how their program helped them. After months of acting classes, and monologue perfecting, I applied to six schools. I made it to the second round of NYU callbacks, final round at UCSD, and invited to audition to the Royal Academy in London (to which I have submitted!). I used the monologues I learned to then present at SDPAL’s All Cities Auditions, where I was seen by my now agent, Shamon Freitas Talent Agency. Since then, I have worked on over four commercial shoots and look forward to doing more!
Even if I don’t get in at all—I know that training can come from anywhere and from anyone. And the process I have gone through, the hundreds of seltapes I have taken not only for Grad School but for auditions, projects and other submissions, the classes, all of it has taught me SO much. It has helped me grow immensely as an actor, and as an artist, and as a person.
When I’m not writing, making jewelry, or playing pretend in front of my camera or on stage, I am hiking, trying out different restaurants, and planning my next travel destination!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, I had a lot of expectations to do well in school academically and go to the best college, but I felt like I often fell short of that. Students around me were sporting 4.0+ GPAs, with 5’s on all APs, president of clubs, etc. Westview was a pretty high-achieving, academically gifted public school, Poway Unified in general was/is. I did well in school, but I wasn’t academically stellar or exceptional, I had a hard time focusing a ton in school because I wasn’t very interested in many subjects and the thing I truly looked forward to every day was English class, Choir, and auditioning for musicals. Those environments are where I felt the most myself and most free. To be honest, I grew up feeling ugly. I grew up in a community and an environment where the ideal was the quintessential Christian, sparkly blue-eyed blonde girl. I was the complete opposite; dark-skinned, thick-eyebrowed, South Indian Hindu girl whose culture and religion was unfortunately often the subject of mockery, sardonic remarks, and insincere questioning. Being able to sing, dance and act felt like a thing that made me, me! And it made me feel unique and like I had something going for me, even if I wasn’t the best student and if I wasn’t pretty.
I often felt, while auditioning for theatre shows that I didn’t fit the look 99% of the time.
In 2019 and 2020, I lost my job twice. That took a huge hit to my ego, and then interviewing for jobs during COVID was really hard on me as well, dealing with job rejection and companies shifting priorities. It was an uncertain time. I’m grateful I could stay with my parents here.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a writer and performer through and through, and that translates to what I do for work and for play!
I’m a digital marketing freelancer and copywriter. I write social copy, whitepapers and blog content for brands across industries from Non-profits, SaaS, eCommerce, CPG and more. I can present a deck to a client showcasing month over month social trends and then also perform a full play or musical! I like to call myself a “Digital Marketer by day, Thespian by night.”
I’ve used my passion for storytelling in all capacities: in my hobbies and in my occupation.
What sets me apart is my unique background. I grew up doing Bharatanatyam and Carnatic music, not Ballet and Broadway—I think that training has really shaped the artist I am and has given me a leg up because it’s a different kind of training that maybe many theatres aren’t used to. Bhartanatyam is theatrical but also very subtle and expression is shown through the eyes predominantly.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was a very imaginative child and very sensitive. When I was in kindergarten, my teacher had a meeting to determine whether I belonged in the special education program because I said odd things like “I have 100 brothers and sister” and often sat alone at lunch. What wasn’t out of the ordinary, yet good for me, was that my reading comprehension was better than that of my peers, and that ended up helping me stay on track with the rest of my peers.
Among people I’m comfortable with I was/am energetic, and enthusiastic, and often liked being center stage. I played out action movies and fantastical stories in my backyard and bedroom tried singing songs out of my range. I was a pretty chatty kid, but I was often chided for it in school. I usually kept around 1-2 close friends, I never really thrived in big groups of friends, even throughout middle and high school. I felt more at home in smaller groups, among people with whom I could be vulnerable.
I was very driven and ambitious, I often said growing up that I would win an Oscar one day and become a successful star haha, today, it’s not the end all, be-all thing I really aspire to be. It’s something that could happen and I am okay with it, but I am also okay if it doesn’t happen, in the end I just love performing.
Contact Info:
- Email: sutheshnam@gmail.com
- Website: https://suthecreates.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suthemani/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/smoothayy
- Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BjewlDBySuthe
Image Credits:
All taken by me. The selfie of me on my Instagram account, is taken by Nicola Lee Barrett.
