Susan Yankowitz (born February 20, 1941, in Newark, New Jersey) is an American dramatist and novelist who has created works on mortality, violence against women, and the Jonestown Massacre.
[4] Based upon her success with The Open Theater, Yankowitz was recognized as a collaborative playwright, and she worked with various other theatrical troupes in that capacity.
As a result, she began writing her first novel, Silent Witness and declined an opportunity to collaborate with Peter Brooks in order to complete it.
[4] She has written plays about such topics as motherhood of a mass murderer (A Knife in the Heart), the Jonestown massacre ('Slain In The Spirit), and aphasia (Night Sky).
The musical Slain In The Spirit recounts the Jamestown massacre and the opera Thumbprint tells the story of Mai.
[4] According to Yankowitz, the "topsy-turvy" world of a playwright is best illustrated by her aborted efforts to collaborate on the book for the 1983 Broadway musical Baby.