Biography

Saranna Rotgard is a film and theatre actor, opera singer, and flutist, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. From a young age, she displayed exceptional musical acumen, and trained at the Manhattan School of Music, Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and Third Street Music School Settlement.

Saranna attended New York's famed Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts, where she maintained a 4.0 while holding leading roles in the school's operas, and was often a featured soloist in the school's elite Symphonic Choir. Upon graduation, she received the award for "Most Outstanding Graduate in a Studio: Vocal Music," the school's highest recognition of artistic achievement.

Granted acceptance to an array of the nation's leading conservatories, Saranna chose to attend Boston's prestigious New England Conservatory of Music to study opera.

However, lured by her fascination with music’s ability to alter neural circuitry in the brain and armed with a life-long penchant for academic inquiry, she took a hiatus from her formal education and returned to New York to study neuroscience independently, but quickly landed a position spearheading a project in molecular neuroscience at Columbia University Medical Center. Saranna is currently enrolled as an undergraduate at Barnard College of Columbia University.

While at Columbia, she discovered the work of Lee Strasberg and his acting technique known as “the Method.” Saranna’s work as a musician and as a scientist allowed her an almost empathic response to Strasberg’s artistic philosophies and meticulous procedures. She studies at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York and considers herself a devoted Method actor.

Within her first year working as a full-time actor, Saranna held leading and supporting roles in nineteen short films, and one of two leads in her first feature film, "The Library."

She devotes rigorous daily practice to her craft, and continues to seek out films and roles that challenge her, push her, and excite her creatively.