ABOUT
BIO:
Tawnya began her career studying acting at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts-West. For the next six years she studied and worked in the performing arts, first in Los Angeles, and then in New York. In 1999 she began her behind the scenes career by co-producing Kara Sachs one-woman show, Self Storage, which had a month long Off Off Broadway run. Soon after this she worked as an Assistant Director, Stage Manager, and Lighting Operator at The Red Barn Theater in Key West, Florida. In 2001 she began studying filmmaking at Humboldt State University in Northern California. Here she made short Super 8 and then 16mm films. While living in Humboldt County she co-ran Shenandoah Film Productions, a production/transfer/distribution (Native American Documentaries).
In 2006 she did graduate filmmaking studies in Narrative Directing and Writing at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia. Following that she relocated to New York City to pursue her filmmaking career. She’s since worked doing Outreach on the acclaimed documentary: Gypsy Caravan: When The Road Bends…, and as an Editor at the Center for Communication. In 2009, through Wingspan Arts, she taught and supervised the making of a short documentary with a high school class in Queens, New York. This year she is consulting on the Video Yearbook class. She has also been directing for theatre, as well as developing upcoming narrative short and feature films.
Credit: both paintings by Paula Stern