Rosanny Zayas plays a role in the production of “Almost Maine” written by John Cariani and produced by Catch A Clover Productions at Queens College. Photo Courtesy of Rosanny Zayas
When Rosanny Zayas was growing up in Ozone Park, she never dreamed that, upon graduating from college, a relatively newfound passion for acting would vault her into one of the most prestigious theater institutions in the country – The Juilliard School – and she would be preparing for a life on the stage.
While the 23-year-old appreciated the arts growing up – she was, for example, a choral group member at Forest Hills High School – Zayas did not discover just how much she loved acting until late in high school. And it wasn’t until Zayas took an acting course with Claudia Feldstein, a theater professor at Queens College, that she began to consider acting as a career.
“Claudia was one of the first people who took a real genuine interest in the work I was doing,” said Zayas, who graduated from Queens College last week. “It was because of her that I felt like I could do something. There’s nothing else I want to do – there’s nothing else I love more than acting.”
For Zayas, discovering that passion led her to be accepted into a four-year Master’s acting program at Juilliard – an extremely competitive school in Manhattan with an acceptance rate that hovers somewhere around 6 percent.
“I went crazy when I found out I was accepted,” Zayas said. “I called Claudia, and I was just screaming and screaming. I lost my voice because I was screaming all day. It was one of those things that just you know is going to change your life.”
Already, Zayas said theater has changed her life – helping her to not only cement what she wants to do in life – which includes acting on stage, as well as in film and television – but providing her a way to talk about her life in a way she never had before.
“I think society now tells you to hold everything inside and not show your true emotions,” Zayas said. “Theater lets you be vulnerable, and for people to not judge you for that makes me so happy.”
The Queens College graduate said it was a monologue she did for Feldstein’s class that gave her such an emotional kick in the gut that she was taken aback by just how influential theater can be.
“I did this monologue at Queens College, and it pushed me further than I ever had been before,” Zayas said of the piece in which she plays a 16-year-old pregnant girl whose father died at the hands of a dictatorial regime. The character, whose mother never speaks of the father’s death, goes on to look into the circumstances surrounding her father’s life.
“At the end, it’s about getting back to that mother-daughter relationship because they have a bad relationship,” Zayas said.
That monologue was one of four pieces she ended up performing for her audition to Juilliard – for which she prepared through a free Department of Drama, Theater and Dance program that helps students with material for Master’s auditions. Zayas was among a number of theater students who participated in the program – which school officials said has been so successful that a number of Queens College theater students are moving on to programs at schools such as Yale, New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.
“It’s a testament to our program,” said Feldstein, a Queens College and Yale Drama School alumna. “The department offers enough foundation to be a strong launching pad to these very competitive theater schools.”
As for Zayas, she hopes that after four years at Juilliard, she will be able to make an imprint in the world of acting.
“Eventually I’d like to try film and TV, but I feel like my home is theater,” she said. “That’s where I feel most comfortable and belong.”
Additionally, Zayas – whose family is from the Dominican Republic – said she’d like to run her own theater group that would cast a brighter spotlight on Latino playwrights.
“If I could create a judgment-free space in the world, that’s what I’d like to do,” she said. “That’s the best thing about theater – when you’re acting something out, you’re not allowed to judge. I wish real life was like that.”
By Anna Gustafson
