Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP.159 | feat. Joe Cunningham & Laura Stisser from The Syracuse Actors Studio

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Syracuse Actor Studio on Building Community and Launching SAS Fest at The Palace Theater Host Noah Chrysler interviews Laura Disser and Joe Cunningham, co-founders of Syracuse Actor Studio (SAS), a monthly, donation-supported gathering of local actors and creatives featuring rotating instruction, exercises, performances, panels, workshops, and occasional field trips to connect Syracuse’s theater and film ecosystem. They discuss SAS Fest, a free-admission (donations encouraged) Central New York screening event at The Palace Theater in Eastwood running Sunday the 19th from 12–9, featuring 21 local projects including short films, a feature, and music videos. Joe and Laura describe how SAS collaborations helped generate many of the films and share their new short film, “Mariah,” about a disgraced CIA operative battling addiction and confronting her past, shot at recognizable Syracuse locations. They outline growth plans including a 501(c)(3), an interim board, and a long-term vision for a film incubator called Cinema City. 00:00 Welcome to Good News York 00:18 Meet Joe and Laura 00:35 What Is SAS 01:20 Inside Monthly Sessions 02:47 SAS Fest Details 04:03 Why SAS Fest Exists 07:31 Community Fuels Creativity 08:55 New Film Collaboration 10:29 Mariah Plot Pitch 11:09 Writing Directing and Locations 13:44 Playing a CIA Role 15:02 Yin Yang Partnership 16:20 Organized Chaos Filmmaking 17:27 Self Tapes and Auditions 18:02 SAS Future Vision 21:23 SAS Fest Details 22:21 Community Growth Stories 24:13 Palace Theater Praise 24:49 Final Thanks and Sign Off

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Good News York. My name is Noah Chrysler, and today I am sitting with Joe and Laura from Syracuse Actors Studio. Joe and Laura, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much. Fantastic. Can you guys introduce yourselves quick? Who am I'm Laura Sissor, and I'm a local actor and co-founder of Syracuse Actors Studio.

Fantastic. And my name is Joe Cunningham, and I'm a co-founder of Syracurcurec's Act studio and local actors. well. Awesome. So for those of our viewers who do not know what Syracuse Actors Studio is, can you tell us a little bit about Syracuse Actor Studio? Sure. Syracuse Act Studio or SAS as we like to call it is a group of local actors that gets together once a month to have like a communal collective learning session where we have instruction, exercise and performance and we try to inspire each other and support each other and create opportunities for each other in the world of acting and connect with other creative people as well.

Very cool. Yeah, I was at my first Syracuse actor studio event last month, and it was Joey Marcus was the speaker. Stand-up comedy, yeah. Yeah, very, very cool, very cool event. Can you tell a little bit about what actually happens? What goes on at those events? What is the kind of the order of the night and that sort of thing? What could people expect? Oh my gosh, it changes. It changes literally every month and we've been doing it for two years. So when we first started, we just got some scenes together. We, you know, separated people in different groups and worked on the scenes and then got together again. And then we'd film them and show them.

And that's when we were kind of a baby group. Since then, we've had directors panels at American High producer panel there. We've had, what else did we have American High before that? We had the actors panel and the... Oh, yeah, the Actors Panel. We try to do something different every session and focus on like a different aspect of acting or the film or theater world. And then every once a while, right now we're out of the palace theater in Eastwood. And every once a while we'll do like a field trip to a different place, like a theater or a film company,

so that everybody can kind of get more out there in the ecosystem of the acting world in Syracuse. We've had improv groups. We've had Shakespeare. We've had my business coach from New York City came and did a workshop, which was phenomenal. Yeah, it's definitely a mix every time. It's different. Very cool. Very cool.

I hear you guys have an event coming up called SASFest. Can you tell us about SASFest? When is it? Where is it and what is it? It's a SaaSFest is basically, Joe describes it as like a Sundance, but we're not really showcasing, we're just showcasing films, screening films. And it's going to be just Central New York filmmakers and creators.

There's 21 on the roster right now, including three of yours, three of Joe's, one that we co-brews together. All different times, there's one feature, I believe, and then the rest are going to be five, 10, 15, half an hour short films. Short films, yep. And Palace is going to be hosting for us as they're wonderful. They're just a wonderful group of people. And it's from 12 to 9 on Sunday the 19th.

You can come in and out. There's no entry fee, but we do ask if you could donate just to help the festival keep up and SAS keep up and also the Palace Theater. and their sponsorships available. Yeah, you want to add to that? Sure, yeah. It started as just, we had kind of, one of the goals of SAS was to get creative people

to knock into each other and go out and create something. So it was like intentionally unintentional that we have so many different films over the last two years come from actors and directors working together at SAS. So we had at least three films, last fall and we were just gonna get together in a basement and watch these movies with whoever cast and crew could come. And then Laura and I started thinking about it and be like, why don't

we pitch this to the palace? Because I had shown my short film Under the Mercy there several years ago and it's just such a beautiful space and it's really, I love cinema more than almost anything else and it's the best way to watch a movie is in a dark theater and with 500 other people and so we pitched it to them and they were like they couldn't have been nicer in hosting us and so we then we went from like having three films on the docket to kind of putting feelers out to our network and be like hey do you have that remember that movie that you made you know don't you want to see it on the big screen can you add it to our to our roster and I didn't even realize like when I went to make the schedule we had 21 films all from local film filmmakers

And so then it became not just like come watch your movie, it became like a real fest. And just I've always been very inspired by Robert Redford. The actor's studio came from the inspiration from like Strausburg from New York City and what he did for like a renaissance of acting back in the 50s, 60s, 70s. We got James Dean, Marlon Brando,

Merrill Street, Pacino De Niro. It really changed acting and like made things better in the acting world. We're not Straussberg. We don't meet, you know, five days a week, but one of our actors is Jenny Russo. And so we have this like kind of melting pot collective. And Sass Fest is kind of that same thing, taking from like Robert Redford took Sundance and made it into this great melting pot of independent filmmakers.

You know, I met Nick Casavetes, John Caserva's son at the Sergues Film Festival a number of years ago and John Casabedis is the father of modern indie filmmaking he's a Academy Award nominated actor dirty dozen you know he's such a great actor but Hollywood didn't want to make his movies so he just took his own money and he financed his own films and woman under the influence is nominated for was nominated for several Academy Awards Jenna Rollins his wife Peter Falk what's the other guy's name killing of a Chinese bookie John Kazar I think and the name names just gave me but that whole idea that you can get your friends together and you can make a movie and so that we've seen that 21 times in Syracuse in the recent in recent times and so our goal is like create this

space that can this this space and time this event that can really Elevate film in Syracuse and other people can come and be like oh he made that movie on his iPhone I can do that too. And over the next couple of years, we're just hoping to see like a huge renaissance of independent film. I think that that is incredible. I really do.

I think that, you know, so I came to the last, or the Syracuse Actor Studio event, and I've also tried to build Syracuse Improv, right, for a lot of the same reasons that you've described, right? The idea that community, right, there's a lot of really cool things that come downstream from community, right? creative partnerships, right?

You're meeting actors, you're meeting filmmakers, you're meeting people who just have the same drive, motivation and intentions as you do, right? And I think in my life, right, the times when I've done my coolest work and had the most success, right, it came downstream of me joining a community where I met creative individuals.

So I think what you're doing is super powerful and deeply needed and I'm excited to kind of work more together as you do that because I think that that's amazing. We're excited to meet you. We like fans. Awesome. Awesome. Fantastic.

Yeah. I also think like the democratization of filmmaking, right, is huge. You know, the tools are more accessible than ever. You know, I just, I was playing with Premiere on my phone the other day. Premiere on the phone is incredible. It's like, I was like, wow, this has come so far. Three years ago, this was not this good and it's great. So, but yeah, I think it's wonderful, you know, putting the like-minded people together and just

saying, hey, go be creative, go make something. I think that's how you really. really make some cool things. So I think that's fantastic. Beautiful. You guys have mentioned that you have recently created a film together, yeah? And you've worked on multiple films together throughout the years. Tell me about your most recent work together.

Joe literally, well, thankfully had me in mind for their lead role. But he wrote a script in one night. He's like, hey, Laura, I wrote this CIA thriller, and I want you to play the lead. I'm going to direct. I'm like, okay. You have to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, okay, twist my arm, you know.

When you don't have to audition for something, it is a gift, right? It's a gift. So I read the script. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is amazing, you know? So, and as we got together, I said, can I help? Can I help do something? He's like, you want to co-produce? I'm like, yes, yes, I have no idea how to do that, but yes, I do, you know?

She did great. So. So, of course, I'm going to, you know, research everything I can about producing. and he's such he's a wonderful teacher he knows everything about filmmaking and he's he won't he won't say does but he's obviously you learn every day right we all learn every day um but yeah so it's a short film um and i'm literally i've never done a film where i was in every scene uh it's what 30 minutes i think 35 minutes um and uh yeah it's really cool we've obviously shot it locally um and And we used a lot of Syracuse.

You're going to recognize a lot of different places, which I love. Cool. I love doing that. Give me, give me like the 30-second elevator pitch, right? Do we have a pitch for the plot of what happens during this film? And what's the name of the film as well? Amariah. Amariah.

Yes. So it's about a disgraced CIA operative who she's struggling with a drug and alcohol addiction and kind of to deal with the death of one of her agents. And then literally something comes into her life from her past, and it sets her on a mission to find justice and things like that. Very cool. Which is totally not cliche at all. Not at all.

But hey, it works. Yeah. When you're making a film, you kind of take clichés and then you have to like spin them in a different way. So I'm a huge fan of the spy movie genre, but more like the realistic spy movies like Siriana with George Clooney. You got the Oscar for that. It's just one of my favorite movies. And The Most Wanted Man with Philip Seymour Hoffman, I think it was his last movie.

And they're like super grounded in reality. It's not like James Bond or Jason Bourne, who I also love those movies. But it's like when I was watching that, I watched Siriana like, I don't know, 10 times a year or something like that. And I was like, and I was, Laura had sent me an email, I believe, from one of her coaches to like ask all of her director friends to tell them, tell her what kind of role she could do.

So I sent her this big long email, but I think you could be like a detective and you could do this and you could do that. And I didn't put this role in there. But then that was a really smart thing for her coach to do because that whole next day, I was just thinking about this idea that like M from a Judy D.

Dench from James Bond and I was like, what if she was the lead character, you know, and what if she was the George Clooney role in Siriana? And she was kind of disgraced and she was trying to like move mountains with. The new WeGovi pill is now available through Weight Watchers. Powerful GLP1 results in a simple pill at the lowest price available. And with Weight Watchers, you can get doctor support and personalized nutrition programs. See if you qualify at Weight Watchers.com. Add not reviewed or approved by Novo Nordisk. Nothing.

And I was, and I started to, I was at work and I just started to like, I think I texted Laura like 75 times. And I was like, what if this happens? And I was like, you know, we have to have like a red herring and we have to do this and we have to do that. And then I was, and then I went home and I wrote it. And it's the best acting I've ever directed. She's amazing in it. We did this one scene. I'm not going to spoil anything.

But we did this one scene. It was a seven minute take and I wanted to put the whole take in the movie. I'm like, new. It's the best, we had to cut it down a little bit, but it's the best thing of, it's the best acting I've ever directed. So I'm just super glad to work with Laura on that. And we used how many locations.

We shot at Cafe Gabal. We shot all around the city. We shot, where else did we shoot? We shot at the Pizza Man Pud in Bobbinsville. Yes. We had a major scene there. We kind of doubled for Annapolis over there. Yeah.

Yep, and then, yeah, downtown Syracuse, big time. And we shot in the winter. I've never shot at Destiny Mall in the parking garage. That was fun. Yeah, I really liked that. Very cloak and dagger. Sure. Yeah.

Very cool. That's awesome. Fantastic. Well, cool. Laura, so you portrayed a CIA character. What did you discover about yourself? What did you learn from this? Did this movie change you in any way?

Like, portraying somebody from this? Yeah, I've never played this. type of will before. I always, I'm definitely more of a dramatic actor and I've done some comedy and I want to do more, but drama is my niche, I guess. And I never thought I could take this roller coaster ride that I did with this movie. It was very, a couple of things were very dark. But then I've also played women that are struggling, but I always rise to the top. And that's how this movie was as well. So yeah, I just I just love the fact that Joe had that much faith in me. And like I said, we have a great partnership very, like I said, yin-yang, and it just works

really well. And like I said, I'll never, I'll never be able to think of enough for giving that role because it really did help my ego as well. As an actor, you're always like, oh-hum, like, you know, you're always after rejection after rejection, for rejection. and then you know but then you get one of those roles and you're right back up there again I love it when you say yin and yang what what aspects do you bring to the table and what aspects does Joe bring to the table I bring definitely wisdom because I'm older I bring the woman's perspective I bring the networking perspective and the marketing perspective Joe well she's also professional she's in the union and

and she knows, she has a ton of theater experience and way more film experience than I do as well. So like auditioning and every professional thing that you can do as an actor, I always send people with Laura because she knows how to do that stuff. And she helped me get my role in American High film last year. I couldn't have gotten that without Laura. She was like, come out of my house, I'll shoot in my studio. And I didn't even know how to, I was just going to do it in the bathroom. You know.

You probably, he probably would have gotten it anyway. No, I don't think so. But she, you know, that's, she's so professional. So that was one of the reasons why I was like, we need you because I'm kind of this grassroots indie guy running around the city crazily. I like that energy, though. That's what you need, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So got it.

So you're kind of like the energy and Laura kind of brings some experience, some production knowledge and some networking as well. I used to be a professor at Newhouse. So I'm very like OCD with like my, everything has to be a PowerPoint and it has to be, well, Google slides. And everything has to be, there has to be a schedule and there has to be boxes for everything. And we have to be planned out a year in advance and things like that. But then, of course, I'm also crazy. And like that I always describe the SaaS energy is chaos, but like structured. It's organized chaos.

Yeah, it's like we have parameters. And then it's just, that's kind of how my movies go. I kind of set up the parameters and then create some chaos that the actors don't even know about and then roll the camera and then we get there. I think that that's fantastic. Usually in one take. I resonate with that very hard as well. That is very much what Syracuse and Braves about as well. You know, it's like, hey, build a container and then let's see what happens, right?

I love it. Very cool. Sometimes the best takes are take 25, but I think the best take is usually take one. Take one. Because, like, the actor doesn't even, the actors don't even know what's going to have. happen next and you can see that like on their face yeah it's more organic yeah especially with self-taking you know it's so easy now to do 10 12 takes and I really have to train hard not to do that anymore like I do three max and and then make a decision from that I do like it though more

than walking into an audition room for sure yeah because you're saving time with travel you know right waiting in line yeah waiting waiting waiting seeing all these other people yeah that are Oh gosh, she's going to get it. Seeing them, hearing them, like, oh, man, why didn't I do that? Yeah, exactly. And you get a second try. Yeah, you do. Take two.

Yeah. I love it. Cool. Guys, assuming things go your way, where is Syracuse Actress Studio a year from now? And then five years from now and then 10 years from now, right? What do you see in the future? What's the vision? One thing that we have now is an interim board.

Originally, it was just me and Joe for a very long time. And we've developed some very good friends that have, that weren't even actors, really, that kind of came and saw what we were doing and really, really believed in our vision. And they loved the environment. So we have an interim treasurer now, a PR person, so our treasurer would be still undergast. And then, Secretary. Secretary. And then Tim Pathy Bridges. Oh, sorry.

Yeah, sorry. I am. Tim Pether Bridge is our treasurer, so as her secretary and Tracy Hagenbottom is our PR person. And then we're actually going to get our 501 3C very soon, which we're very excited about. So that could only help us grow more.

Again, we've done this on donation only when people walk in the door and some actors just don't have that to bring and that's fine. And that's one thing that Joe always said, we're never going to charge. because we want this to be open and an opportunity for everybody. Yeah, when I was in my young 20s, which I'm just a slightly bit older than that now,

but I was living in a halfway house on the west side, and I wanted to be an actor, and I had no opportunities, I didn't know anywhere to go. So when we started SAS, I always wanted it to be no barrier of entry. There's no audition process, there's no fee, you know, at least for the once a month session. But we really do want to scale it. So that eventually there's like a facility and there's you know

Day daily classes there's more going on and this the next thing that I kind of want to roll out is cinema city So this initiative that kind of combines what we're trying to do with SAS Fest and what we're doing with SAS and it's like a Independent Film studio that's an incubator for independent film and there's like it's a professional studio think of the the big Warner Brothers studio in Hollywood and there's a hundred movies shooting there at all times. Some of them are first-time filmmakers. Some of them are, you know, Chloe Zow and, you know, Bradley Cooper is shooting over there an independent movie or something like that. And that's like my vision is that we have that here in Syracuse and we have like this huge professional film ecosystem where like you can, a kid can come off the street and apply for the incubator program. I have three films in Sassfest. One cost. One cost.

$20, one costs $200, and one cost $2,000. So there's like, there's, but there's a will, there's a way. So I want to have like all these different, um, creatives be able to, you know, be supported and make their film. That's, I'm, obviously theater is important, and I think, you know, half of SAS is theater and half of the SAS actors are accomplished theater actors, and I really lure is one. I want, I really respect those people too.

people too but I'm so in love with film so that's kind of where I want to go with it yeah wonderful well very cool you've got the event happening SAS Fest happening on Sunday April 19th you said 9 to noon 12 to 9 12 to 9 12 that got it noon to 9 p.m beautiful where can people find more information how can we help you and how can we learn about this well we on every social media platform basically Instagram Facebook TikTok we have an event on Facebook specifically where we have all of our info there's a schedule there there's a post about each of the filmmakers and what their film is and who they

are and everything and then tomorrow will be on Bridge Street yes three of our yep three of our we will not be there we've been there already so we're letting other people that shine with our group do this tomorrow our master ceremonies will be on and two of the filmmakers as well so very cool and then we're excited to be here yeah this is this is amazing This is beautiful. Absolutely. Welcome in, guys.

We appreciate you stopping by. Thank you. Thank you. Anything that we didn't talk about? Anything that you want to cover that we miss? I'm just grateful for all the actors who have, you know, we started with 17 in a small room at Safe Space. Safe Space and the University Building.

And then we've grown to the mercantile downtown. I think we averaged like 30 people a session there and now we're up to like 45-50. And we're really grateful to the Palace Theater for hosting. We're hosting not only SASFest, but SAS every month as well. And, you know, SAS wouldn't exist unless all these people crazy as us didn't come out every month and kind of be a part of the magic. So it's very exciting. And we draw all kinds of people. So producers, actors, writers, directors, screenwriters, playwrights.

We've had sessions covering all that. So people do feel comfortable coming in. We've had actors that are classically trained, just years of experience, and people are like, I'm not really sure of it, but I want to try it. And our PR person, she's never acted before, and then she did a monologue on stage, a community monologue already. And it's just like, yeah, I think you saw her. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she was like, oh, I got this, there's this audition at American High, 200 people auditioned for it. She had never acted before, and she won the audition. Wow. So she just did a roll on American ice. Wow, we kind of did that. Yeah. How incredible. Oh, that's wonderful.

That's absolutely fantastic. Well, cool, guys. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for stopping by. And thank you for building this for Syracuse. Like, seriously, I think it's... And thank you for building. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Thank you for getting the word out. But we say a rising tide raises all ships, so that's kind of the feeling. Exactly. Beautiful. Well, cool. Also, the palace theater is the coolest venue. It's so cool. It's the best. The vibes are awesome. You go in there. It's, I hadn't been in there since I was a child, you know, and just walking back, you know, it's the coolest.

It's a great person to work with. Adam is a nice. He's so generous. He's the best. Yep. It's all about the arts. My son, we were setting up the program. My son was playing Blade Runner on the big screen. I was like, this is better than I remember it. This whole the cinema experience there. Yeah. Awesome. No, I love it. It's a beautiful venue. And I had a blast when I went. I thought it was a really cool. Yeah. Anyway, thank you guys so much for watching. Good News York. My name is Noah Chrysler. This has been Joe and Laura from Syracuse Actors Studio.

Thanks so much for watching. And we'll see you next time.