Piyali Syam grew up in an area of upstate New York where she was one of a handful of nonwhite people. In school, she took too many AP classes, placed in spelling bees, and otherwise entirely upheld the nerdy Indian kid stereotype. As a National Merit Scholar, she had the privilege of attending Fordham University on a full scholarship. She graduated magna cum laude with a major in Philosophy and double minors in Creative Writing and Religious Studies, then decided acting was an equally viable career path.

She started my training at The Barrow Group with Seth Barrish and Lee Brock. Her studies continued at UCB, Matt Newton Studios, with Bob Krakower, and she is currently studying with Anthony Abeson, who, when she performed a dramatic monologue with tears running down her face, said: “you’re very funny. You have sharp comedic instincts.”

In addition to acting, she creates sketch comedy videos and writes TV and film scripts. Her original pilot script “Marriage Brokers”, co-written with my writing partner Vick Krishna, was recently recognized as a quarterfinalist in the WeScreenplay TV Pilot competition.

On SPR she plays Apoorva Singh.