Muuss, Terri

Terri Muuss is an actor, writer, performer, director, educator and social worker. Her poetry/prose one-woman show, Anatomy of a Doll, received grants from New York Foundation for the Arts and Poets and Writers and was named “Best Theater: Critics’ Pick of the Week" by the New York Daily News; it has been performed throughout the US and Canada since 1998. Terri’s poetry has appeared in Bolts of Silk, Apercus Quarterly, Atticus Review, Long Island Quarterly, Brevity Poetry Review, Red River Review, Poetrybay Magazine, JB Stillwater and three anthologies: Whispers and Shouts: An Anthology of Women's Voices on Long Island (2012), Veils, Halos, and Shackles: International Poetry on the Abuse and Oppression of Women (2013), and the Bards Annual 2013. Her poem "Rialto Beach" won the 2013 Great Neck Poetry Prize and her first book, Over Exposed (JB Stillwater Publishing, 2013), has been nominated for the 2014 Pushcart Prize in Poetry. Terri also co-produced and hosted the monthly Manhattan poetry series Poetry at the Pulse for two years.

Terri received her BA in Theatre from Kean University, trained at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in NYC, and studied for several years at Michael Howard Studios in NYC under Larry Singer, Fay Simpson, Bill Irwin, and Patsy Rodenberg. Her numerous stage credits include Masha in The Seagull (Theatre Row, NYC), Donna in The Taffetas (regionally in VT, NJ, NY and abroad in Ireland’s West End), and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Terri also provided voiceovers for a number of Anime features, including Battle Arena Toshinden (Chris), Iria - Zeiram the Animation (Kai) and The Heroic Legend of Arsland and appeared in many industrial and instructional videos.

Terri has directed hundreds of performances featuring children and teenagers (both original and established plays) at schools throughout New York City and Long Island. She has also spent many years directing one-woman Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway productions, including Deborah Ortiz’s Changing Violet (Nominated for two IT Awards – Best Solo Performance and Best Performance Art piece), Veronica Golos’s A Bell Buried Deep (From book of same name that won the Roerich Poetry Prize and was nominated for a Pushcart), Athena Reich’s rock opera Athena Under Attack (Toronto Fringe Festival and Producers Club in NYC), Lisa Ramirez’s Exit Cuckoo (63rd Street Y), and Lisa Danser’s A Missing Peace. Terri excels at adapting material for the stage, having done so for Changing Violet and Lemon Meringue.

As a licensed social worker (MSW, Hunter College ’02), Muuss specializes in the use of the arts as a healing mechanism for trauma survivors and teaches a course at Rutgers University to social workers entitled Youth Development Through the Written Arts. Terri is also a motivational speaker and life coach who specializes in group work and addiction/abuse counseling. She has worked as a social worker at both GirlSpace in East Harlem and at LICADD on Long Island. After a series of leave replacement Social Worker positions in schools, Terri was hired as the Communications Coordinator for the Bay Shore School District, where she has won numerous awards for her efforts in Public Relations. Terri lives on Long Island with her husband, writer Matt Pasca, and her two ginger-haired boys, Rainer and Atticus, former Ellen Show “Presidential Experts."

(Source: Official site)

Facebook: @terrimuussauthor
Twitter: @RainAttMom
IG: @terrimuuss