Elysia Segal

Early life

Elysia Segal was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and attended Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando, Florida. While there, she placed fifth at the 2003 National Catholic Forensics League National Championships and was elected to the Teen Arts Advisory Council for Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood.

Segal was also a semifinalist in the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge and won first place at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in 2003 with her research project analyzing the use of proteoglycans as a biomarker for congenital hydrocephalus. Main-belt asteroid 17795 Elysiasegal was named for her in recognition of this achievement.

She graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts after studying at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, the CAP21 Musical Theatre Conservatory, Stonestreet Studio's Film & TV Workshop, and at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. She is also a founding member of the Tisch East Alumni Council.

Career

Segal has performed in a number of productions, most notably her portrayal of the feisty, lesbian performance artist "Maureen" in RENT. Other credits include The Legend of Flowers (Lincoln Center), George M. Cohan: In His Own Words (Lake Placid Center for the Arts), and The Who's Tommy (DeBaun Center for Performing Arts). She has also made a number of film and television appearances including The Music Never Stopped (Official Selection of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival), Going the Distance, Royal Pains, and Mercy.

In 2010, Segal starred as "Gillian" in Together This Time: A New Rock Musical by Andrew Heyman and Zac Kline, a role which she originated at NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program two years prior. She also appeared in the show's off-Broadway premiere later that summer at the Lucille Lortel Theater.

She then played "Beth II" in Ryan O'Leary's 'Y: The Last Man', a film adapted from the Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra graphic novels of the same name. It premiered at the 2011 Litchfield Hills Film Festival and screened with a Q&A panel at I-CON 30 at Stony Brook University. She also received a Best Actress nomination at the 2011 FTC Luminaries for her appearance in Louis Matta's time-travel film The Traveler, which went on to win Audience Favorite Sci-Fi Mini Short in the 2011 ShockerFest International Film Festival.

Segal received a nomination for Outstanding Actress for her performance as "Daisy Miller" in the world premiere reading of the play Pushing Daisy at the Gene Frankel Theatre. The largely autobiographical piece by playwright and cancer survivor Lauren Epsenhart was the first to be produced by The Pushing Daisy Project, an organization which promotes cancer awareness by showcasing new works.

Writer/director Terence Krey later cast her as "Cassandra Southwick" in his web series pilot Entwined, which went on to win "Best Use of Numerical Element" in Celebrate the Web 5, and then again as "Chloe," the lead in his genre-blending indie-horror-romance feature Not A Monster. They collaborated the next year for Celebrate the Web 6 as well on the steampunk-inspired pilot "The Belle and The Bot," with Segal (also a producer on the project) playing Abigail, the time-traveling Southern belle from the year 1863, and Krey as her tragic robot husband, Edward. The show won "Judge's Choice" and runner up for "Audience Choice" in the competition, and was screened at VidCon 2012.

She most recently co-produced and starred as Penelope in Krey's supernatural dramedy feature film, "Winter Slides."