Suzanne Birrell
The voice, the music and the sensibility at the centre of Calico Pie. Every one of the ten films begins with a song she wrote and sings.
The record
The films grew out of an album. Before there was a picture show, there was this.
Calico Pie
and Other Poems by Edward Lear, set to music and sung by Suzanne Birrell
- MusicAll compositions by Suzanne Birrell (ASCAP)
- WordsEdward Lear, 1812–1888
- RecordedLive at Studio D, Sausalito, California · December 2010
- Running time45:13
- Suzanne BirrellVocals, bass and percussion
- Tom DuarteAcoustic guitar
- Produced byCharles P. Jones
- EngineerJoel Jaffe
- CoverSuzanne Birrell
A twenty-year project brought to life.
Suzanne doesn’t just tell the stories — she acts them out, in character voice, with great pathos and humour. The Owl and the Pussycat, the Jumblies in their sieve, the Dong on the Gromboolian plain: each one has its own voice on this record, and each of those voices became the soundtrack of a film.
The melodies, the singing, the bass and the percussion are hers. Tom Duarte plays acoustic guitar throughout, and the sound was designed and engineered by Joel Jaffe at Studio D with producer Charles Paul Jones. Everything you hear in the Picture Show comes from those sessions; the animation was built around the songs, not the other way round.
Forty years of music
Bassist and vocalist first, and a multi-instrumentalist who has played in more bands than most people have seen.
Primarily a bassist and vocalist — four- and five-string electric, acoustic and upright — Suzanne also plays oboe, saxophone, drums and percussion, and writes and arranges her own material. She composes, records and performs across jazz, country, rock and more, and teaches middle-school theatre and band.
- Calico Pie and Other Poems by Edward LearStudio D, Sausalito · 2010 · the record behind the Picture Show
- Cats with Class: Other People’s MoneyGlendale, California · 2014 · ten tracks, six written or co-written by Suzanne
- Suzanne Birrell — Her ’08 AlbumHer debut
- All three albums are available as digital downloads ↗
Stage and screen
Screenwriter, actor, director, editor — and the founder of two working communities of writers and actors.
Suzanne studied scriptwriting at Webster University and Fullerton College. Her screenplay Time Before the Fall won the Wiki Scriptwriting contest and was a semi-finalist in the 2022 Miami Screenplay Contest; her TV pilot Sally Norma was a Best Short nominee. Her portfolio runs to a dozen features and pilots, plus animation and shorts.
In 2013 she founded Screenwriters and Actors of Hollywood, and in 2017 Screenwriters and Actors of Santa Fe. Both are still active.
She is also the author of the novel Magpies & Yellow Roses.
- ScreenplaysAn Empty Chair · Calico Pie · Pearl Fisher · Time Before the Fall · Merrimen · Exterminators · Tit For Tat · Phishing for Phoebe · Have You Met My Sister · Sally Norma (TV pilot) · Mangas Dam · Johanna
- On screenGirl Trip (2018) · Nathan for You (2013) · Damage (2011)
- FoundedScreenwriters and Actors of Hollywood (2013) · Screenwriters and Actors of Santa Fe (2017)
In the Picture Show
Ten poems, ten songs, ten films — and Suzanne on camera to introduce each one.
Every episode of Suzanne Birrell’s Preposterously Peculiar Picture Show of Nonsense is one of her Calico Pie recordings, animated frame by frame in cut paper and fabric. She also films an on-camera introduction for each poem, in costume and in character, so that each film arrives the way it would at a live show.
See all ten episodes