Seema Sueko '94Founder, Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company
Seema Sueko ’94 was already familiar with Puget Sound when she arrived for Orientation in the summer of 1990—her sister also attended the university—so she jumped right in. She served on the campus diversity committee; worked for the theatre arts department; performed onstage in plays and operettas; and sang with the Adelphian Concert Choir. Who would have guessed she was actually a politics and government major?
“Politics and theater are not mutually exclusive,” says Seema. In her honors thesis she found a way to combine her passions, writing a paper exploring the politics of occupation as reflected in the arts at a Palestinian theater company. She had become familiar with the company while studying abroad at Tel Aviv University.
From Puget Sound, Seema moved to the Windy City to study international relations at The University of Chicago. There she decided to pursue a career in performance. “When you get to grad school, there’s no time for anything other than what you’re studying. Without the theater and without the music in my life, that’s when I realized how significant a part it was,” Seema says. “I realized I could make an impact or affect change through the arts more than I could through academia.”
To that end, Seema began a successful career onstage. Her credits include performances at theaters throughout Chicago, as well as Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Conn., The Ohio Theatre in New York City, and the 5th Avenue and Intiman theaters in Seattle. Seema is a three-time winner of Chicago’s coveted “Jeff Award,” and toured with Living Voices' one-woman show, Within the Silence, about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
When her husband, Troy ’94, was offered a position as a sportscaster at KSWB Channel 5 in San Diego, the couple relocated to Southern California, where Seema has continued to perform. In 2004 she launched Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company with the goals of creating professional, socially conscious theater and providing a voice for diverse and underrepresented actors. Now thriving, the company offers onstage productions, workshops, and educational programs as a vital part of the San Diego arts community.
Major: Politics and Government; Honors Program
Study Abroad: Tel Aviv University
Plays: Seem has written three plays, including Stretched, about the relationship between a Muslim girl and a Protestant boy; remains, which earned her the 2004 Anti-Discrimination Committee Arts and Cultural Achievement Award; and Messy Utopia, which she was commissioned to co-write for Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis.
Photo by Nick Abadilla | 
