Joanna Bonaro

Joanna is a Native New Yorker, hailing from The Bronx. She often portrays ballsy yet vulnerable wives, moms and cougars, who have fierce loyalties and hidden sensitivities simmering under the surface. She won the prestigious Bronze REMI Award in the lead role, for the comedy TV pilot "GOOD 'n Screwed" (w/ Vincent Pastore) playing against type as a naive, scattered, OCD "good wife", at the highly regarded 51st Worldfest Houston Intl Film Festival. She has also won Best Actress, Best Pilot, Best Screenwriting and Best Ensemble at festivals in Rome, Cannes, London, Las Vegas, and New York City. TV roles include "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit", (opposite Mariska Hargitay, Christopher Meloni and Ice-T) "The Sopranos"(Dir. Steve Buscemi), "Mozart in the Jungle" (opposite Gael Garcia Bernal), "Boardwalk Empire." A graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, she also studied 14-19th C English Literature - thereby being one of the few people who know about Tobias Smollett, Boswell and Samuel Johnson. She attended The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, England with a focus on Shakespeare. Off Bdway roles include "How Alfo Learned to Love", (opposite Robert Funaro) and the newly discovered 18th century play (The Art of Thinking), as the intellectual courtesan Elizabetta Caminer. Other memorable roles include The Duke (Measure for Measure), Medea (Medea), Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), Tamora (Titus Andronicus). She is a proud member of Renegade Theatre Company, Art. Dir. Maureen Van Zandt which she considers her creative "home." She created her production company BrainyBeauty Productions/aka Still Waters Productions to advocate for and create female driven content for women over 40 in film, television and digital media. Prior to returning to acting she won National Sales Awards in the Cosmetics Industry working for Estée Lauder in charge of their 2nd largest Dept. Store account in the world and developed sales and training programs and special events to successfully launch new products.