Daena's Acting Bio

DAENA GIARDELLA is an actor, director, teacher, and coach. She has been called one of the “trailblazers” of improvisational theatre performance and training. Her many original one-woman theater performances, including Yes To Everything! Moment to Moment, Bare Essentials, Play! and Now What? have garnered kudos throughout the USA and abroad for over twenty-five years. The Boston Globe called her an "impressive talent" while the Boston Herald described her as "a talented and gifted actress."
 
Daena was invited to Poland to work with legendary theatre director Jerzy Grotowski in his Theatre of Sources (featured in the film “My Dinner With Andre”). She was also invited to perform at the Susan Delal Center for Dance and Theatre in Tel Aviv, Israel where her show Yes to Everything! received enthusiastic reception. While living in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War, Daena turned her wartime experience into the powerful Moment to Moment, which enjoyed successful runs in Israel as well as in the USA.  The Tel Aviv Hair said "Giardella is a phenomenon...a classic actress...an intelligent clown."  Her production Bare Essentials earned kudos from both audiences and press during her two runs in Boston. ("An enormously talented performer/improviser with a dancer's agility and a blues belter's larynx...her characters have heft and the advantage of surprise--Boston Phoenix.") “Play!” a performance about our work obsessions, had its premiere and successful run at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art Theatre and was called “a must see.” by the Boston Globe.  Daena stirred audiences with her performance Now What? -- a gutsy and poignant look at our lives since Sept 11.

Daena has recorded numerous radio and television commercials and narrations and she is a member of AFTRA (American Federation of Radio and Television Actors), Daena was featured as a creativity coach on The Cheryl Richardson Life Makeover Show on Oxygen TV and she also appeared on the PBS series Discovering Psychology and A New Voice. Recently, she was the host of CURRENTS, a talk and interview radio show on the National Radio Network.

Daena has inspired workshop participants from all walks of life with her innovative methods for teaching acting. For the past twenty years her popular improvisational acting workshops have helped stimulate a thriving improvisation community in the Boston area and spawned many improv troops. She also coaches performers and writers in the creation of original material for stage, fiction, or memoir projects.

Daena was formerly on the faculty at Boston’s Emerson College and Boston Conservatory. She was also co-founder of TheraVision, a video/theatre process for training psychotherapists at the Kantor Family Institute. As drama director at Roxbury High School under a grant from Harvard University, she directed inner city students in the creation of original plays. She has given diversity and anti-bullying workshops for teachers and students in many educational settings, including the New Mexico Human Rights Foundation. Daena was invited to Poland to work with legendary theatre director Jerzy Grotowski in his Theatre of Sources project. She has also lived in Tel Aviv where she gave numerous workshops and performances.

Daena also works as an organizational consultant. Many world-class companies have tapped Daena as an executive leadership coach and keynote speaker. She designs professional training and educational programs that target entrepreneurship, leadership, negotiation, team building, creativity development, and presentation excellence. She is frequently invited to give keynote presentations as a motivational speaker and humorist.

Daena has co-authored a book with Wren Ross called, Changing Patterns: Discovering the Fabric of Your Creativity.
Her web site is www.daenagiardella.com

Daena's Consulting Bio

Daena Giardella has dual backgrounds in the performing arts and in organizational development and coaching. An actor, director, teacher, and consultant, she has spent over 25 years combining these disciplines and, in the process, pioneered an innovative method for teaching improvisation to people from virtually every profession. She designs professional training and educational programs that target entrepreneurship, leadership, team building, creativity development, and presentation excellence.

From Boston to Brussels, prominent organizations and world-class companies have tapped Daena as an executive leadership coach and keynote speaker. She teaches Improvisation & Influence for the MIT Sloan School of Management’s SIP week, and she led an advanced training in Negotiation Improvisation for the European Commission. Among her past clients are The American Heart Association, Hewlett Packard, Citibank, Smith College Executive Education, Imagine Foods, Mass. W.I.C. Program, The U.N. Copenhagen Conference on Women, Bentley College, Kodak, and The Royal Bank of Canada.

Daena has written, produced and starred in many original one-woman theater performances which have received wide critical acclaim throughout the United States and internationally. The Boston Globe has called her an "impressive talent" and the Tel Aviv Ha’eer wrote, "Giardella is a phenomenon...a classic actress." She is a member of the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists.
 
Daena’s myriad TV and radio appearances include The Cheryl Richardson Life Makeover Show on the Oxygen Network, where she was featured as a creativity coach as well as the PBS series Discovering Psychology, and Currents, a talk and interview radio show she hosted on the National Radio Network.

Daena co-authored a book called Changing Patterns: Discovering the Fabric of Your Creativity, and recorded a spoken word CD entitled Improvisation in Everyday Life.

Daena was also a faculty member at Emerson College and the Boston Conservatory, and she co-founded TheraVision, a video/theater process for training psychotherapists at the Kantor Family Institute. She was the director of a theatre program for at-risk high school students at Boston’s Roxbury High School under a grant from Harvard University.

Daena has worked in dozens of schools systems and universities where she created original plays with students and implemented teacher-training workshops that help teachers and professors utilize creative teaching approaches in their respective subject areas. She has given diversity and anti-bullying workshops for teachers and students in many educational settings, including the New Mexico Human Rights Foundation.

Her web site is www.daenagiardella.com or www.ImprovisationInLife.com