Elena began her acting career at age fourteen on stage of the Sovremenik Theatre in Moscow. She starred in The Echelon, a play by famous Russian playwright Mikhail Roschin.

The widely known actress Marina Neyelova was replaced with a schoolgirl from Oleg Tabakov’s studio. Her name was Elena Antonenko. After, there were the exciting university years at the renowned acting academy of Russia GITIS, work within three famous Moscow drama theatres, followed by sixteen lead roles within some of the best Russian film productions at the time. While residing at the Moscow’s National Drama Theatre, Elena creates her own first enterprise theatre The Most (Bridge in translation) into which she invites some of the biggest names among the theatrical society of Moscow.

In 1990 Elena adapts three stories by V. Garshin The Red Flower, Nadezhda Nikolaevna and Attalea Princeps for a staged play she names I Declare Inspection over this Madhouse!. The play becomes a winner at the Russian Theatrical Enterprise Festival after which Elena using her own funds with the support of an American journalist Rosemary Brady, takes her theatrical troupe to London (England) and Edinburgh (Scotland) to a British theatrical festival Fringe which becomes the leaping step in development of creative contacts in the west.

Elena along with her theatrical troupe, gets invited to Virginia (USA), where she successfully puts on the play and gives fourteen master-classes to students of the acting major at James Madison University. A year after that, the theatrical troupe of The Most theatre with the participation of nationally acclaimed Russian actor Yuri Vasiliev puts out an experimental performance under Jean Cocteau’s play The Human Voice named by Elena The Monologue of the Actress within the Space of Art & Music. The play features performances by famous saxophonist Sergey Letov and painter Igor Goncharov. As another year passes, The Most theatre is invited to New York, where Elena and Rosemary Brady hold two Russian-American Cultural Forum Art Festivals on Broadway.

Then, the unexpected turn of destiny – king of Broadway, legendary Harold Prince the director of the widely acclaimed musical The Phantom of the Opera, also an author and producer of some of the most successful musicals worldwide, gives Elena the recommendation letter for an American Citizenship under the category “People of Extraordinary Ability”. Shortly after, Elena moves to the United States…

…And scores a role in The Sopranos, which is considered today to be the best TV Series of the 20th century. Here Elena gets to work with James Gandolfini, a three time winner of the EMMY Award for the best execution of a leading role in a drama series, and also an owner of one the most prestigious awards The Golden Globe Award.

Soon after, Elena is invited to Hollywood.

British director Ken Loach puts on a picture called Bread and Roses. Out of forty-seven foreign contestants for the part, only Elena manages to pass the audition and claim one of the leading roles. Another lead in the film was played by then a young actor, Adrian Brody (Winner of the Oscars for his performance in The Pianist). This project presented the first lead role for Elena in an American blockbuster film. Afterwards another major role followed for Elena in The $treet directed by Darren Starr, widely known as the writer of the famous TV series Sex and the City.

Today Elena’s resume has seven major roles in Hollywood productions.

Early in 2001 Elena Antone established her acting workshop in New York.

In 2005 Elena moved to Hollywood, opened her Academy of Theatre Arts & Film, defended her dissertation within the theme Theatre – as a Psychotherapy and acquired a Ph.D as a Doctor of Theatrical Arts.

Elena’s latest achievement is the creation and production of a program here at the Academy with the symbolic name Bridge to Hollywood. If you remember, it was exactly her very own The Most(Bridge in translation) theatre which started her on the path to Hollywood.