Svetlana Efremova

Svetlana Efremova is a Soviet Union-born American actress of stage, film, and television. Born in Novosibirsk, she trained at the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts and spent eleven years with the St. Petersburg State Theatre. She later moved to the United States and earned a master's degree in acting in 1997 from Yale University's David Geffen School of Drama. On Broadway she appeared in touring productions of Uncle Vanya as Helena and Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, playing Cassandra. She has appeared in television drama, crime, and detective series, and her film career took off with White Oleander (2002), directed by Peter Kosminsky. She also played Tatyana Dyachenko in Spinning Boris (2003). Efremova teaches acting at California State University, Fullerton, where she heads the acting program.