Susan Cinoman grew up in Philadelphia, an adopted child in a family of bookkeepers and business people. While the rest of her family was talking economics and market trends she would be in another room, drawing, dancing, singing and writing. Now, she has a movie to show for her efforts.
“I was always uber-creative, to the point where it became ridiculous,” said Cinoman. “It was hard in the family to relate; they were very pragmatic.”
Cinoman, 51, grew into a versatile woman who teaches English and drama by day and dons a playwright”™s cape by night.
This past year when her mother died she set out in search of her birth parents and found the seeds of her creative tendencies.
“They are all very artistic. My biological father had aspirations to be a writer, my half-brother was a musician, one sibling went to NYU for acting, and there it is ”“ it”™s all genetic,” said Cinoman.
Her most-recent creative leap, a joint project with her directorially inclined fiancé Doug Tenaglia, is a feature of the Connecticut Film Festival, currently touring cities across the state. Together, Tenaglia and Cinoman head the new production company Destino Productions.
Cinoman attended Temple University where she studied theater and acting, and then went on to Bryn Mawr College to study English.
While at Temple, she lived the bohemian life and had an all-female comedy group called “The Soubrettes.”
She stayed with the comedy show for a number of years after college, but the troupe got older and developed different interests.
To make ends meet, she consistently found teaching jobs and taught English while living in Philadelphia.
Cinoman used writing as an outlet to keep her creative juices flowing and her muses satisfied.
“I had been a performer from high school on, but I decided to start writing and taking writing more seriously,” said Cinoman.
As soon as she began writing plays, her alternative life started to take off. In 1995, she headed to New York City with her plays. She became acquainted with the theater scene and her material was performed off-Broadway and continuously.
“It”™s not easy,” said Tenaglia. “She seizes whatever quiet time she has and gets to her writing. Unlike other writers who have strict writing routines and work within a certain time each day, Susan can write anytime, anywhere.”
She continued to teach English and Drama and currently teaches at the Middlebrook Middle School in Wilton.
With Cinoman commuting from Connecticut to New York, teaching and raising her two children, the strain began to show.
Cinoman found an outlet that would take her away from work and thinking of work via animal rescue. She currently has a dog named Little Fella and a cat named Beanie.
“I think I relate to animal rescue because of my adoption,” said Cinoman.
She also has a rescued horse.
“I went to Montana for a wedding a couple of years ago and we went to this horse farm and it was like a jolt,” said Cinoman. “I found this barn near Woodbridge where they do horse rescue and I was very drawn to it.”
The majority of Cinoman”™s work is comedy.
“I was compelled. I was writing short plays, so I would write one and then the next one would come into my mind and I”™d have to write that one and it”™s like they had a life of their own,” said Cinoman. “I write realistic comedy, so it”™s sometimes a little dark. I like to write about human behavior and relationships and people.”
Cinoman and Tenaglia”™s joint venture, “Love and Class in Connecticut,” was Cinoman”™s first choice when she and Tenaglia decided to pursue a film together.
The entire movie was shot in Cinoman”™s living room in 48 hours.
“We shot 80 pages, the entire thing,” said Cinoman. “It was like drama camp; nobody slept.”
The first review from the Hartford Courant called the film, “an engrossing and focused chamber play.”
“It”™s possible for everyday people to make films,” said Cinoman. “People who are not living in L.A. and working in a studio. It”™s cost efficient; anyone can do it.”
Cinoman and Tenaglia submitted “Love and Class in Connecticut” to the New England Film and Video Festival at the Coolidge Theatre in Boston and won best narrative short.
The Connecticut Film Festival culminates in May in Danbury with a five nights of screenings, workshops and parties, just one week before Tenaglia and Cinoman are to be married.
