Raised in a theatre family with a father who studied with the famed, Sandy Meisner and Martha Graham, at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, she was stage managing the absurdist plays of "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Becket and "The Balcony" by Gene Genet by the time she was 12.

 

She began her own training as a dancer at two years of age with the great tapper Al Gilbert and progressed to training with Michael Rooney, Billy Goodson, Cindera Che, Bill Prudich, Jackie Sleight, Rebecca Wright, Randy Allaire, Tony Coppola and Doug Caldwell at Dupre Dance Academy in Los Angeles. As an actor she continued her Meisner training at Playhouse West, Shakespearean training at Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Los Angeles and all round classical theatrical training at American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) in San Francisco.

 

Her professional dance career highlights include videos with Madonna and Cher, stage performance alongside Chita Rivera and working with Kenny Ortega in the movie Salsa. Early on, however, she realized she wanted to be a creator and not just a player and so began working on film sets as a way to observe and learn. As a writer and director her training began at the Los Angeles Film School and she completed a 2 year graduate level screenwriting program through Writer’s Boot Camp. Best of all, however, she has been blessed to be mentored by some truly amazing artists: for directing she was mentored by Mark Travis (A Bronx Tail) and Asaad Kelada (Facts of Life, Who’s the Boss, Dharma and Greg, Everybody Loves Raymond), for film editing by Vivienne Hillgrove (The Right Stuff, Amadeus, Mosquito Coast) and setting her sites on show-running, she shadowed Rodrigo Garcia (Six Feet Under, Carnivale) on the HBO series “In Treatment,” starring Gabriel Byrne and Dianne Weist.

 

With a desire to be the best “actor’s director” she could be theatre has been her greatest sandbox with highlights that include co-directing Jim Beaver (Deadwood, Supernatural) and John Cygan (The Commish, Bob Newhart Show) in “Lion in Winter” and Lee Merriwether and Betty Garrett in "Mornings at Seven” at Theatre West, and Gina Bellafonte for the USC MFA One-Act competition (which she won). She co-produced, co-wrote and co-directed the award-winning documentary “In Service to the Dream” as well as other short films that made their rounds at New York Independent Film Festival, Starz and Los Angeles Shorts Festival.

 

Passionate about arts education, while raising her two children, she taught dance and theatre arts to all ages and continued developing her own creative projects culminating in her present, most purposeful work of her life, “Stripped,” which lives in form as a book, theatrical production and television series.