Sue trained at the Middlesex Polytechnic and the Nottingham Trent University in Theatre Design. For the first four years she worked with a variety of touring companies, designing "Tongues Will Wag" for Greenwich YPT; "Can't See the Wood for the Trees" for Roundabout TIE; "Stone Moon" and "The Party" for Theatr lolo and several productions for Action Transport Theatre, including "Macbeth", "The Magic Book" and "Broken Angel".Sue then became Associate Resident Designer at the New Victoria Theatre, Staffordshire, where designs included "Ghosts", "Private Lives", "Oliver Twist", "The Hound of the Baskervilles", "Overture", "Beauty and the Beast", "Insignificance" and "Aladdin" (costumes). She returned as a freelance designer on "Billy Liar" (also for the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough), "Sweeny Todd", "Outside Edge" and "Dealer's Choice".
Other freelance designs include "East is East", "Corpse", "Hot Pants" and "Roughyeds" (Oldham Coliseum); "Insignificance", "Animal Farm", "Return To The Forbidden Planet" and "Alice" (Harrogate Theatre); "Three Minute Heroes", "Dick Whittington" and "Aladdin" (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry); "Sleeping Beauty" and "Robin Hood" (Salisbury Playhouse); "Murder by Misadventure" and "I'll Remember You" (Mill at Sonning); "Bleak House" (Oxfordshire Touring Company);"Aladin" and "Twelfth Night" (Cheltenham Everyman); "Mother Country " and "A Chaste Maid in Cheapside" (New Vic, Bristol) and several productios for Sixth Sense Theatre Company, including "The Just So Stories" and "Jabberwocky".