Celeste Ciulla is a native New Yorker. However, when her older brothers started showing great interest in the Hell’s Angels in their Lower East side neighborhood, her parents—who met as students at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts— decided to move them to Englewood, New Jersey.
At Dwight Morrow High School Celeste focused on things she knew she wouldn’t have time for in college. She played the violin in The Bergen County Youth Orchestra, as well as studying privately. She captained her school’s track and cross-country teams. She performed in one play—as Renfield in Dracula. As she recalls it, the rest of the girls auditioned for the role of Lucy.
Celeste attended Northwestern University, graduating with a BS in Theatre. She has long since lost the “freshman 35 pounds” she gained there. Her brothers, just to be difficult, went to Rutgers and majored in Physics.
She went directly into grad school and graduated in two years from the American Repertory Theatre’s Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.
Upon graduation from Harvard, Celeste moved back to the Big Apple with her union card in hand and William Morris as her agent — and went immediately to work as a nighttime receptionist for a NYC law firm, where she soon rose to assistant office manager, then office manager, then assistant LAN administrator, then events planner. She also captained the firm’s volleyball team. (She has held many other jobs, such as ice-cream truck driver, sales clerk in a children’s hair-salon/toy-store, and cater waiter.) While at the law firm, she continued to act, taking leaves of absence to perform.
When Celeste became a member of The Pearl Theatre Company—coincidentally located on the same block in the East Village where she was born—it was time to leave the law firm. She remained at the Pearl for four years, and while she was there won the AEA's 2002 Callaway Award for "Best Performance in Classical Play" for the role of Kate Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer.
During the years of 2006 to 2009 Celeste spent half the year performing in The
Summer Shakespeare Repertory Festival
at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.
The other half of each year was spent
on a variety of projects at a variety
of regional theatres, as well as narrating
audio books.
2010 reminded Celeste that you never
know what’s around each corner! She did
not return to the Globe that summer and
both the catering and theatre businesses
had been slow, (like so many others),
but The Globe asked her to step into
the World Premiere of Duncan Sheik’s
“Whisper House” that spring and it was
an incredible show and a beautiful experience.
The Globe then nominated her for the
Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship, which she attended
for eight spectacular days that summer
at Ten Chimneys. She went directly from
Ten Chimneys, (after a brief visit with
friends at Great River Shakespeare Festival
in Winona, MN), to Arrow Rock Missouri
where she worked with old friends and
new on a lovely production of “The Man
Who Came To Dinner.”
In the first quarter of 2011 and the
last months of 2010 Celeste was fortunate
enough to return to St. Louis Repertory
Theatre and Cincinnati Playhouse in the
Park to perform in a co-production of "Over The Tavern" by Tom Dudzick, directed by Michael Haney. In Cincinnati the production won
the "Acclaim Award" for Outstanding Equity Ensemble!
Now Celeste is back in the recording
studio working on several audio books.
In an attempt to face two fears, improv
and acting for the camera, Celeste just
took a class on "Comedic Improv for Film" with wonderful Director, Writer, Producer, Educator, John A. Gallagher, which
gave her hope that one day she'll be
able to enjoy acting on film and television
as well as on stage. And very shortly
she will climb her very first real rocks
(as opposed to all the colored plastic
one's she's been climbing) at The Gunks!