Scarsdale High School grad lands TV role
India Stachyra, SHS Class of ’15, appeared on a well-known program.
Stachyra as Assistant District Attorney Shannon Duffy.
BY DEBORAH SKOLNIK
India Stachyra has had a flair acting for as long as she can remember. “At my preschool graduation they had a list of what they thought everyone was going to be, and next to my name it said ‘Broadway Star,’” she remembered. Those words have proven prophetic: Stachyra, now 27, recently landed her first speaking TV role on NBC’s venerable Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
An ambitious attorney
The young actress played Shannon Duffy, an assistant district attorney. “I remember that before I sent in my tape audition, the character breakdown, as they call it, was something like ‘a mid-thirties lawyer who's a go-getter and sharp,’” she recalled. Her friend, an expert in the business, estimates that Stachyra beat out anywhere from dozens to hundreds of hopefuls.
“I only had two lines, so there wasn’t much personality to develop, but I had fun with it,” she said. “I think Duffy is very serious about her job and wants to represent the ‘people.’” (Stachyra’s two lines: “Given the brutal nature of this crime, the people request remand” and “Your client, armed with a baton, led a vigilante mob to beat a man so seriously he needed to be hospitalized—I could charge him with attempted murder.”)
It was only a few days after she sent in her audition tape last November that Stachyra found out she’d landed the part. “My manager emailed me and called me and said, ‘Hi, India, congratulations,’” she shared. “I was ecstatic. It was also my birthday—it just felt like a birthday present.” Not long afterward, she was called to a costume fitting; the wardrobe department ultimately settled on a grey, pinstriped pants suit with a white and blue collared shirt beneath.
“She’s a go-getter,” Stachyra said of her TV counterpart.
Six hours and a shot at fame
On filming day, Stachyra arrived on the set, located at one of the buildings at Chelsea Piers, at 6 a.m. for hair and makeup. When it was time to film, “we did as many takes as the director wanted for a certain angle, but then the cameras had to move around, so you had to wait in the hallway until they were rearranged,” she said. “It definitely was a surprise how big the crew was, with camera operators and boom operators who were doing the sound.” In all, her work was over in six hours.
For Stachyra, who graduated from Scarsdale High School in 2015 and concentrated on theatre at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, Shannon Duffy could be her stepping stone to the big time. “Everything I add to my resumé helps,” she said. “It will look a little more professional and advanced, especially now I have that credit on my IMDb [Internet Movie Database, a comprehensive online database of information related to films, TV programs, and more].” As she awaits her Oscar, Stachyra is a freelancer who does social media marketing and graphic design for independent and nonprofit theater companies.
On the day the episode aired, she gathered with her family to watch the program. “We were waiting, like, ‘When does this scene happen?’” she said. “When it did, we were all excited and of course we rewound it a bunch of times and I took a picture of myself in front of the TV. It surprised me how the footage turned out—I didn’t think they were going to use so many angles of me. I definitely think I looked older than I do in real life. Props to the makeup person.” (To see the episode for yourself, use the Peacock app if you have it, or catch it on NBC.com as long as you are able to log in to your TV provider, Stachyra said.)
One of the most thrilling aspects of the entire experience, Stachyra shared, was to spot her name as the credits rolled. With luck, it will be one of many times she’ll see both her name and herself on the small (or large) screen. “I’m looking forward to whatever’s next in my acting career,” she said.