After graduating from WestConn Vanessa pursed her acting career. She originated the role of Sadako in Ron Destro and Yoko Ono's Kennedy Center Award winning play Hiroshima at Theatre for the New City in New York. She also performed in A Cup of Coffee at Yale Repertory Theatre, As You Like It and A Midsummer Nights Dream with Shakespeare on the Sound and An Absolute Turkey, A Little Family Business, Hound of the Baskervilles and You Can't Take It With You at Pioneer Playhouse. She has also appeared in numerous shows at The Spinning Wheel Inn and with The Downtown Cabaret Children's Company. She received the Square One Subscribers Outstanding Actress Award for her work in Educating Rita .

Vanessa is also a playwright. Pie and the Sky is now available in the Smith and Kraus anthology The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2007, 2 Actors . Early Dismissal is available in The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2007, 3 or More Actors . Current Season and The Answer are being published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2008, 3 or More Actors . Resolution #9, a New Year's play about new families and old traditions, is being published by JAC Publishing and Promotions. Her plays have been produced in New York, Boston, Connecticut and Portland, Oregon. Her full-length play Vermipostal has had a number of readings and was a semi-finalist for the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference. Her full-length play CCD had its premiere reading with SquareWrights at the Stratford Library.

She can be reached at Dvanes@aol.com