Vanessa Mizzone Pellegrini is an actor, director, writer, sensitivity specialist, and Theater Arts Professor at East Los Angeles College, where she teaches in the Acting Program. In all her work, her goal is to lead with empathy, model with openness, and motivate with humor.
Vanessa has her MFA in Acting from UCLA and her BA in Theater Arts and Communications from the University of Pennsylvania. Her book “Navigating a Career in Performance: Your Creative Career Guidebook” that she co-authored with Jessica Champagne Hansen and Camille Schenkkan will be released February 2026 on Focal Press by Routledge. At ELAC, her directing highlights include: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, The Taming of The Shrew, and Death and The Maiden, which was a Region 8 Finalist in Kennedy Center's American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) in Hawaii. Vanessa also served as KCACTF’s Region 8 Irene Ryan Co-Director for 4 years and is currently a regional respondent.
Professionally, Vanessa is a long-time member of L.A.’s theatre company The Actors’ Gang, headed by Tim Robbins, where she was also the Director of Education for over 5 years. Performance highlights at The Actors’ Gang include: Embedded (National Tour), Tartuffe, Blood! Love! Madness!, the Queen in Gulliver’s Travels, and Emily in Our Town. Regional credits also include performing at the Theatre@Boston Court, The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. She completed the Groundlings School Comedy Program and has trained with comedy stars such as Lewis Black and Richard Kind. Television highlights include: ON CALL (Amazon), GENTEFIED (Netflix), KENAN (NBC), AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM (FX), GLEE (FOX), THE LAST SHIP (TNT) and as Elise on the CW's JANE THE VIRGIN.