For our Alumni Q&A series, we caught up with Joni Ravenna BFA ’84 about her multifaceted career, working with David Lynch and the lifelong connections she made at USC.
Tell us a little bit about your professional background.
I’ve written and hosted several long-running TV series for Travel Channel, Fox Sports, PBS, Outdoor Life and others. Most were produced by our company, Raven Productions. A couple were then licensed internationally to Sky TV in the UK and Star TV in Asia. My husband, Mitch Sussman, is a lawyer, so he handled negotiations while I handled all the production.
It was great because I got to travel the world and work with prominent actors, artists, musicians and sports figures. I’ve also produced select segments for E! and ESPN, co-authored a book about a legendary female athlete (You Let Some Girl Beat You?) that Forbes called, “A stunning portrayal,” and written scores of health and wellness articles for national newspapers and some fiction for regional magazines.
But my first love is the stage. Several of my plays are critically acclaimed—one of my short plays was performed in Hollywood this week, in fact. My play, Beethoven and Misfortune Cookies, is another that’s produced often. I began dabbling in playwriting in fourth grade, but only seriously developed the knack for it at USC, where I performed in several plays, and learned to write through osmosis. My very first play, A Brush With Fate, was produced straight out of college as part of an early Fringe Festival and a few classmates starred in it.
What do you miss about college, SDA specifically?
I was lucky to be cast in several great productions, and there were just so many talented classmates that I developed deep relationships with during my time there. USC is known for that, right? Connections. But I guess I miss the rehearsals, or being in the wings and peeking out before you were about to perform, those butterflies; or giggling with a cast member after a show about a goof-up on stage; or being moved by a classmate’s breakthrough performance. The performing arts serve the greatest function of all: the potential for transcendence. And who doesn’t need that? Especially now.
Was there a class or professor that was particularly meaningful or influential during your time at the School? Why?
Jack Rowe, Jim Wilson, Louie Piday and Louis Fantasia all stand out. But John Blankenchip was the one who cast me as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at USC and then took me to Edinburgh to reprise the role, while also casting me as Babe in Crimes of The Heart and Cheryl in Hooters to play in repertory. He gave me the greatest opportunities. Who could forget any of them, though? You’re still at such an impressionable age, or at least I was. And each professor really just wants to get the best out of you. You don’t always see that at the time. But I can now.
What productions did you work on, if any?
Besides Maggie, I played Queen Clytemnestra in The Greeks, Miss Trafalgar Gower in Trelawny of the Wells (allowing me to also play the piano on stage) and Maurya in Riders to the Sea, which was a one-act tragedy. I have to say, I think I pulled off an old Irish mother who’d lost all of her sons to the sea pretty well for a 20 year-old. Accents and pathos? No problem.
Your career has been incredibly multifaceted and spanned many types of writing. What are some of the projects you’re most proud of?
A couple of years ago, I started working on my first screenplay with former USC classmate, Joshua Townshend Zellner. It’s called The Secret Notes, and it’s won several festivals in the last year, racking up 14 laurels and inviting a couple of big meetings, so we’re excited about that. It’s based on the true story of a much loved, Black music professor from Detroit teaching in the Deep South who’s fired after a white student complains. It deals with free speech, racism, mental health and the healing power of music.
But I also have to say that working with the great David Lynch, who sadly passed away last month, is something I’m proud of. We produced The Donovan Concert at the Dolby Theatre for PBS, and much of the proceeds went to his Transcendental Meditation and World Peace Foundation, which provides free transcendental meditation classes to high school students. He was not only a true creative genius but also just a great human being. This was back in 2007, and coincidentally, after he’d just spoken at USC. The show is currently available on Apple TV.
You’ve had recent collaborations with USC alumni. What have the lifelong connections you made at USC meant to you?
Yes! In November 2023, my new musical, The Manager, was workshopped at the Bourbon Room with USC classmates Steve Josephson directing, and Marguerite MacIntyre of the Vampire Diaries starring alongside Shauna Steiner Torok Reppe. We had fellow SDA Trojans Kevin Sifuentes and Thomas Kellogg, show up in the audience to support us; and Shauna performed in it again this past September when it was chosen by The Foundation for New American Musicals to be performed at The Reefer Den.
I also reconnected with film writer/director Gaby Dellal in London in October. We caught up again recently in L.A. Her new film, Park Avenue, was just featured at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. I hear it’s great. Of course, I talk to Joshua Townshend Zellner almost every day. Need a script whisperer? He’s amazing.
What advice would you give to current students hoping to make a career as a multi-hyphenated artist?
First of all, get over your fear of failing. Failing is important and necessary. Second, dig deep into yourself and find out what it is that makes you different, makes you need to be heard, and lean into that. And third, obviously you can’t pigeon-hole yourself. Success comes in all sorts of ways. Don’t let a dream about how you think your life is supposed to turn out get in the way of an opportunity that’s staring you in the face right now. Like the man said: “Life is what happens while you and I are making other plans.”