Today we’d like to introduce you to Arianna Hope Cinello.
Hi Arianna Hope, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started performing before I even knew what a stage was. As a child, I would put on full productions of Wicked in my kitchen for my family. I was Elphaba, my sister was Glinda, and we’d hand out paper tickets before my dad would lift me high and spin me around while I was “defying gravity.”
My first time on an actual stage was in fourth grade, when I played the lead in our school musical: a bald eagle with a rap and about forty lines—which is a lot when you are eight.
I could not fully explain it at the time or put my finger on it, but physically being in the auditorium felt deeply special to my soul. It felt like home before I had spent enough time there to call it that. With the lights on my face, the wooden stage beneath my feet, and the silence of the auditorium surrounding me, there was a certain je ne sais quoi I felt with complete certainty. I knew there was something intrinsic and bone-deep about the alignment and sense of perfect belonging I felt in the space.
We only performed that show one night, but I remember walking to the car with my dad afterward and telling him I could do that show one hundred more times and never get tired of it. That feeling never really left. It was not fleeting; it was part of how I was wired, and part of what I believe I was created to do.
From there, I threw myself into anything and everything I could get my hands on: voice lessons, acting classes, competitive dance, high school one-act competitions, musicals, drill team, and solo acting events at festivals and conferences. By senior year of high school, I had served as Vice President of my Thespian troupe, directed my own full-scale one-act production, qualified nationally in solo acting, and been enrolled to study at one of the most historically prestigious acting conservatories in New York, just steps away from a Broadway theatre.
Then the pandemic hit, and life rerouted me. After a great deal of prayer, reflection, and guidance, I chose to stay in DFW on an extended gap year and began working in the professional theatre scene. At eighteen, I was juggling a full-time gastropub job, a handful of unsuccessful auditions, and very few connections. But after one fateful audition at The Core Theatre in Richardson, I was cast in an original drama in a small featured role, and from there, the waves began to steady.
I became a regular performer and technician at The Core Theatre, moved from hosting tables to teaching toddlers during the day, and slowly expanded my circle. More theaters led to more directors, more artists, and more opportunities to network. After just 2 years, I was officially an established artist in the city that got role offers and requests to lead creative team positions.
Eventually, I felt called to return to school and pursue my acting degree more formally. I am currently studying in the Collin College theatre department while continuing to work in the Dallas theatre community and pursue other artistic ventures. Right now, I feel very much as though I am exactly where God has planted me: surrounded by artists I admire, doing the work I love, and building a life in this craft that feels both sustainable and deeply joyful.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road has not always been smooth, but I have been incredibly fortunate in who has walked it with me. Any time there has been a bump, I have had people helping to steady the ride.
On a practical level, theatre is full of rejection, self-doubt, and instability. There have been auditions that led nowhere, shows that did not land the way I hoped, and seasons when burnout was suffocating. What has made it possible for me to keep going is the support system around me. My parents and family have been a tremendous blessing. They have given me the gift of living at home, cheering me on in every opportunity, and holding space for me after the hard nights—the failed auditions, the stressful rehearsals, the performances I wish I could redo. That is a privilege I do not take lightly.
I have also made some of my closest friends through the shows I have done. These are the people who talk me through major career decisions, stand up for my character when I am not in the room, and celebrate my victories louder than I ever would for myself. Their belief in me has been a stabilizing force in a profession that can often feel uncertain.
And then there are my professors and mentors. I will be honest: for a long time, I thought college—especially for the arts—might be a scam, and that everything worth knowing could be learned simply by doing. While there is certainly truth in learning by doing, I have found that being in a structured environment devoted to curiosity, discipline, and growth has nourished me far more than I expected. The Collin College theatre department has given me room to fail safely, to experiment boldly, to study my craft in depth, and to stretch my mind in the best way. My professors have helped me reframe perfectionism, practice patience with myself, and pursue authenticity in my disciplines rather than a polished version of what my naïveté thought was best. That shift in mindset has been one of the most important developments in my career so far.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
At my core, I am an actress. That is where my heart lives and where my strongest skill set lies. I love working across genres and styles—from classical text to contemporary drama, comedy, farce, immersive work, devised work, and everything in between. Acting is where I feel most alive, most joyful, and most useful.
If I had to name a few favorite roles, two that immediately come to mind are Constance Neville in “She Stoops to Conquer” at The Core Theatre and Puck in “Another Midsummer Night’s Dream” at The Classics Theatre Project, both companies I continue to work with closely. Last year, I also had the opportunity to expand into other performance avenues, including sketch work at Dallas Comedy Club, voicing Elizabeth Lavenza in “Frankenstein: The Radio Drama” with Lamplight Theatre Co., and performing in Warner Bros. Entertainment’s “The Conjuring Universe” at Six Flags Over Texas, where I played one of the park’s most popular characters, Valak, the Nun, and frightened tens of thousands of guests each night.
Alongside performance, I have built a multidisciplinary career around storytelling. I am especially passionate about stage photography, graphic design and social media marketing. I currently do freelance photography and I solely manage all of the social media marketing and graphic design for The Core Theatre. I love capturing the energy of a production in a single image or post and helping a show find its audience.
Behind the scenes, I also have experience in stage management, production management, dramaturgy, and scenic design. As of now, I am writing a critical analysis and personal dramaturgical thesis of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” with the goal of publishing it in an academic database under the mentorship of a professor who has deeply shaped my artistic life. For the past year and a half, I have been developing a passion project: adapting one of my favorite independent films for the stage. My part-time job is at a high-tech, interactive, theatrical escape room where I perform while also running the game for hundreds of players each week. It is a joyful fusion of acting, improvisation, and live event management.
What I am most proud of is not a single credit, but the consistency and diversity of them. I have worked incredibly hard to become a well-rounded artist who understands theatre from multiple angles: onstage, backstage, academically, and in how it is presented to the public. What sets me apart is a unique blend of curiosity, desire, dramaturgical rigor, deep passion, and genuine joy for the craft. Storytelling is such a beautiful art form to me, and I believe it is essential to keep it alive. To invoke empathy and inhabit the unique, messy, incredible, and beautiful human experience night after night—so that people can laugh, love, and learn from it—is one of the greatest callings I could be blessed with.
What does success mean to you?
Success, for me, is the evidence that I am living fully inside work well done.
Sometimes that looks like walking out of an audition room knowing that, whether I am cast or not, I embodied the truth of those five minutes. I got to step into another person’s skin, fully and freely live inside that little spark of make-believe, and offer the best of what I love most.
It can also look like standing at curtain call, hearing the applause of an audience, and feeling the quiet understanding that something in the story reached someone out there. Maybe it made them laugh, maybe it cracked something open, or maybe it simply allowed them to forget their own life for two hours. Knowing I was part of that is one of the deepest markers of success for me.
But success also lives in quieter moments, far away from the spotlight. It is me at my desk, surrounded by highlighters, scripts, and stacks of books, wrestling with the deeper questions of a play. It is the thrill of connecting two ideas I had never linked before, or seeing a design choice suddenly reveal a new layer of meaning. When the dots connect and I discover something new about the world of the play—or about myself—that feels like its own kind of success. Those little epiphanies leave a hairline fracture in my thinking and remind me that the research, the late nights, and the rewrites are less like work and more like treasure hunting.
I feel my success the most when I step into a theatre completely alone, with not another soul in sight, and take in the empty space. The air feels that very specific way it only ever feels in a theatre, and the silence is charged. The room has weight. It has energy. It is like standing inside a heartbeat. In that moment, there is no audition panel, no audience, no résumé, and no pressure to impress anyone. It is just me and the theatre, suspended in that sacred stillness. And suddenly, I am eight years old again: the little girl who did not yet have the vocabulary for what she was feeling, but who knew in the deepest part of her soul that she was saying yes to something long before she knew why. I am reminded that this is what God knit into my DNA. Getting to return to that feeling again and again, sustaining it in a healthy way, and growing into the artist God created me to be—that is success to me. To keep building work that is honest, generous, and alive. To sit in that quiet, illuminated space and feel on fire: fulfilled, grateful, and completely certain that there is nowhere else I would rather be, and nothing else I could imagine doing with my life.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ariannahopeofficial/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arianna.cinello/
Image Credits
(Orange Cover Photo caption):
“Personal photo taken by Kate Voskova”
(Flower crown stage picture caption):
“Arianna as Puck in “Another Midsummer Night’s Dream” at The Classics Theatre Project taken by Devon Rose”
(Blue headshot photo caption):
“Headshot taken by Rhonda Cinello”
(1st collage grid of photos):
“Some of Arianna’s photography work across theaters in DFW. Actor credits found at @ariannahopeofficial on Instagram”
