Ariana Sajnani is from Los Angeles, California and has been living in Mumbai during the past two years, working on her career.
She recently made her big screen debut in a lead role alongside Seema Biswas and Bhagwan Tiwari in “Sir Madam Sarpanch”. This Hindi Indie satire film (written and directed by the award winning Praveen Morchhale) recently received a great reception in theaters throughout India. Prior to this, she had wrapped up ten performances of a play at the prestigious Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai. A few months earlier, she had the exclusive screening of her music video “Lesson Learned” air on VH1 India Soundnation. She is a graduate of The Actors Studio three-year MFA program at Pace University, New York; Whistling Woods International Limited two year film studies program (Mumbai) and California State University Northridge four-year theater program (Los Angeles). Also, she is trained in improvisation from The Groundlings School in Los Angeles. Ariana’s list of specific theater, film credits and other skills can be found at : www.ariana-sajnani.com
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Ariana is Eurasian, possessing a mixed Asian (Indian) and European (Greek) ancestry. She grew up in a multi-cultural home which included elements from Indian (Asian), Greek and American cultures. She has traveled to over 20 countries to date. She considers India her second home. Throughout her life, most of her school vacations each year were spent in different cities in India with family. She was a competitive swimmer for 12 years, a competitive chess player for three years and she plays a mean game of golf. She loves to read plays - specially ones written by Anton Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, William Shakespeare and David Mamet, to name a few. She loves animals and was planning to go into veterinary medicine until the acting bug hit her.
What drives her? It’s quite simple-her desire to learn more about herself and her uniqueness played a great role in inspiring her to explore different activities and hobbies. She has a simple philosophy with regards to becoming self-actualized both personally and professionally: “Stand out- don’t blend in; seek out and embrace your uniqueness as this is what you were born to do. “ In the process of seeking out her uniqueness, she started to grow into herself.
She was born in New York and moved to Los Angeles when she was 16 years old. She was awarded a summer acting scholarship to attend the prestigious California Institute of the Arts ( CalArts) where she became exposed to a variety of acting approaches. Ariana graduated from California State Northridge (CSUN) with a B.A. in Theatre.
Ariana is also a graduate of Subhash Ghai’s renowned film institute “Whistling Woods International Limited” (WWI) located in Mumbai, India. For two years, Ariana obtained a panoramic view of the Indian film industry as she studied with internationally renowned film makers, actors, and directors. It was here that Ariana was exposed to different aspects of film making such as directing, producing, editing, cinematography and script writing. In addition, it was during this same time she became introduced to the Method Acting technique.
After receiving her film diploma in India, Ariana returned to Los Angeles where, in addition to working full-time as a waitress, she immersed herself into theater plays and short films. She continued her training in singing (Soprano), improvisation (The Groundlings, LA) and dance.
In theater Ariana has had many lead roles in various productions including “JUAREZ: A MEXICAN DOCUDRAMA” (nominated for the Kennedy Center for Arts competition), “THE ODD COUPLE”, “THE CRUCIBLE”, “THE MUSIC MAN” and supporting roles in “ORDINARY PEOPLE”, “TAMING OF THE SHREW”, “ANYTHING GOES” and “SIX CHARACTERS”. Ariana’s desire to further her knowledge of Constantin Stanislavski’s “system” methodology prompted her to apply to the Actor’s Studio Drama School (ASDS) at Pace University in New York where she completed her three year MFA degree.
She lives by the credo that “The best form of service to humanity is to lead by example”.
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