ALYSSA RALLO BENNETT
Writer/Producer/Director

Alyssa Rallo Bennett was born and raised in NYC during the sixties and as the daughter of a poet and actress/dancer she developed a passion for drama through acting, writing and directing. She studied with renowned Robert Lewis, as well as the techniques of Sanford Meisner, Lee Strasberg, and Stella Adler and received both her BFA in Drama and MA in Theater and Psychology from New York University’s School of the Arts.

Alyssa started working while in school in both films and television in front of the camera with directors such as Woody Allen, Franco Zeffirelli, and Andre Gregory. In NYC she tested her skills in the theater directing many short and full length plays at Ensemble Studio Theater and the Harold Clurman Theater and was accepted into Sundance’s Playwriting Festival where she worked as director, writer and actor among other such notables as Tony Kushner and Steven Deitz.

Alyssa was awarded a grant by Film Video Arts in NYC to make her first film where she met her writing and producing partner and husband, Gary Bennett, when she was asked to teach a class of directors about the different methods of acting.

Alyssa and Gary worked as a writing team on many projects with Alyssa directing several short films including Dance for Me Velma, which premiered at the New York International Film & Video Festival and also played in the Brooklyn Film Festival, and The Weather Report, which premiered in the Santa Cruz Film Festival and subsequently played in Canada in Light Plays Tricks Film Festival, the Back East Picture Show, The Great Lakes Film Festival in 2004, and Forest Grove Film Festival in 2005. Alyssa’s short films, public service announcements, and music video can be accessed at www.stonestreet.tv.

In 1991, Gary and Alyssa founded Stonestreet Studios, a film and television studio in downtown Chelsea, New York City that develops and produces projects for film and TV. Alyssa also founded and is the artistic director of The Stonestreet Film & Television Acting Workshop. There she trains NYU Tisch School of the Arts Drama students in acting, directing, and producing as well as collaborates with NYU Tisch School of the Arts Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing.

Continuing to collaborate, Alyssa helped produce the feature film Rain Without Thunder that Gary directed starring Jeff Daniels, Linda Hunt, Betty Buckley, Frederick Forrest, Graham Greene, Austin Pendleton, Ming NaWen, and Steve Zahn. The film was distributed by Orion Classics, played in just about every major film festival in the US and abroad and was recently bought by Warner Brothers. After Rain, Alyssa produced the feature film, The Code, starring Angela Pietropinto (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Shaft) and a group of her Stonestreet/NYU students.

After directing Allen Wentz’s music video Waitin’ on the Jones, Alyssa directed many public service announcements for such organizations as the American Cancer Society, Action on Smoking & Health (ASH), Housing Works, and The Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund where the tragedy of 9/11 inspired her to conceive and direct two spots, one of which stars Susan Sarandon.

Working with actor Joe Siravo (The Sopranos), co-director, Vincent Sassone (Tale of Two Pizzas) and fifteen of her students, Alyssa directed her first feature film, Sonnets in the City, now in post production on a budget of $175,000. Sonnets is a cinema verite style film that brings to life Shakespeare’s more dramatic sonnets by placing a cast of young characters who are all struggling with lust, love and rejection in a downtown bar and billiards joint. The film weaves each sonnet with behind-the-scenes dramas and romances and the actor’s process of grappling with making Shakespeare’s material personal.

The Pack has been a project near and dear to Alyssa’s heart. It has evolved and been developed over a period of time – honing the screenplay and tailoring the writing with the input of many actors i.e. Paul Sorvino, Joe Jackson, James Earl Jones.

She gratefully thanked her colleagues who have taken the time to help the evolution of the screenplay, support and feel in the making of the feature film The Pack.