Meet Our Latest Hidden Talents: a Documentary Filmmaker, a Blackjack Dealer and a TV Actor…
And They All Work Right Here at VNS Health!
Welcome to the latest edition of Frontline’s “Hidden Talents” series—featuring profiles of your colleagues with special skills you may not have known about!
Do you have a hidden talent that you’d like to share in Frontline, or do you know someone else at VNS Health who does? We’d love to hear about it!
- Paul Schneider, Film Documentarian
- Tina Arniotis, Blackjack Diva
- Caren Browning, TV Actor
Paul Schneider, Film Documentarian: The Art of Making People Feel Safe Both in Film and Nursing
In addition to being a hospice nurse at VNS Health, Paul Schneider can claim another talent on his resume: film documentarian. Paul fell in love with film cameras at an early age, he explains, when he bonded over home movies with his father. He collaborated on his first film as a college undergraduate at Antioch College and immediately found it was a great way to spread awareness about issues he felt passionately about.
Out of school and living in New Jersey, Paul began looking for a documentary subject. This was the time of New York City’s dire financial crisis of the 1970s. To balance the budget, city officials were making deep cuts in all areas of human service. In reaction, there was a groundswell of response in many affected neighborhoods were basic services had been cut.
A Village Voice article written by Denis Hamill (the younger brother of famed author and columnist Pete Hamill) caught Paul’s attention. It described a small area in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where the local firehouse was closed for budgetary reasons. In response, 300 otherwise law-abiding citizens occupied the firehouse, holding the firemen hostage for 24 hours. They released the firemen but continued to hold the firetruck and the firehouse for almost three years. They called themselves People’s Firehouse #1.
Inspired by the story, Paul reached out to the group and then teamed up with Third World News Reel, a community film studio dedicated to social justice, to capture their journey on film. He finished it in 1979 and was able to sell it to the PBS network. It was broadcast on PBS nearly a dozen times between 1979 and 1985, and it lives today on YouTube.
“The best part of the project is that the community wins in the end,” notes Paul. “That doesn’t always happen, and that’s what made it a great film.” The hardest part of making the film, he adds, was the editing, and the effort involved in “creating one coherent story to convey to the audience, so they can clearly understand the history of the movement.”
In a case of life imitating art, Paul later moved to the Williamsburg neighborhood, served briefly as vice president of the organization, and met his future wife Lois there. The time Paul spent with the People’s Firehouse, he says, provided an abundance of inspiration not only for his future creative projects but also for his commitment to standing and fighting for a cause that deserves attention and change.
“The art of making people feel safe enough to be vulnerable and honest has helped me both as a filmmaker and a nurse—I think of it as allowing people to come down to earth to open up,” says Paul. “When you’re working alongside someone daily as a nurse, you begin to see your impact, just like when a filmmaker gives someone a platform to share their story.”
Both careers have been very fulfilling, adds Paul. On his wish list of future projects: a film documentary about the bravery and courage of visiting nurses. Meanwhile, “People’s Firehouse #1” remains available for viewing on YouTube by clicking here.
Tina Arniotis: Contact Center Agent by Day, “Blackjack Diva” by Night
Contact Center Agent Tina Arniotis devotes her days to assisting the VNS Health patients who call her with their questions and concerns. In the evenings, though, she often finds herself connecting with people in a different way, as a roving blackjack dealer in Jacksonville, Florida.
Her dual life began several years ago, when Tina moved to Jacksonville to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once settled, she found herself searching for a nightlife like the one she was accustomed to back home in Queens, New York. One evening, she walked into a bar that offered a free blackjack table based on the patron’s bar tab. She had such a good time that night that she began participating in every event the blackjack company held at local bars. After becoming a familiar face in the Jacksonville blackjack scene, Tina was approached by the owner of the company with an offer to be a blackjack card dealer. On that day, “The Blackjack Diva” was born.
Tina had been introduced to blackjack years earlier, when she visited Las Vegas for the first time on her 21st birthday. Enamored by the glitz, glamour, and constant entertainment of Vegas, she gravitated to the casino environment, enjoying how there was “always a show going on.” She’s continued to participate in casino card games for over two decades, including poker and Texas Hold’em— but blackjack remains her favorite.
“In blackjack, you’re not playing against anyone but the dealer, as opposed to poker, where you are playing against other contestants, which can be very intimidating,” explains Tina. “The purpose of the game is to get as close to 21 as you can without going over. Blackjack has a set number of rules while poker is all about psychology.”
Hosting her show five nights a week provides the opportunity for Tina to connect with others while bringing her radiant personality to the table. One appeal of her show is that Tina is a female dealer from the Northeast, in contrast to her coworkers, who are all men from the state of Florida. Along with her New York fashion sense, Tina’s accent and her witty but lighthearted attitude have made her very popular among her Floridian clientele. She brings a casino-style environment to every venue she is booked for, whether a hotel, bar, or restaurant. Sometimes she’ll put up casino balloons to give the venue a “game night” party atmosphere, and make it more inviting for the players. Tina also prides herself in being able to take the most novice of players and turn them into a casino-winning contender.
Prior to her role at VNS Health, Tina was a LGBTQ+ advocate in New York City, helping to create safe spaces for people of Caribbean descent all around the city. While she enjoys serving as a Contact Center agent, working remotely from Florida had left Tina missing the feeling of interacting with people in person—a gap that blackjack dealing has helped fill. Now recognized all over Jacksonville as The Blackjack Diva, Tina hopes to expand her shows to other parts of North Florida and encourage more people to relax (and maybe even win a few dollars) at the blackjack table.
Caren Browning’s Journey from TV Star to Playing Our Own “Lillian Wald”
You might know her as the person playing “Lillian Wald” in some of our recent VNS Health videos, but these days Caren Browning spends much of her time helping to make videos like “20 Minutes with Dan,” “Neighborhood Spotlight” and “Ask VNS Health,” rather than starring in them. It’s all part of her job as Vice President of Media Relations and Creative Services, which involves spreading awareness of VNS Health’s activities externally and internally.
That wasn’t always the case, however. Caren fell in love with theater at age four after watching her father star in a production of Samuel Beckett’s play Rhinocerous, and went on to pursue acting as a career in the years before she joined VNS Health. She got her first professional role doing a commercial for a bank, but it was playing Cynthia Muldoon in a college production of The Real Inspector Hound that got her hooked. She studied theater at Indiana University and the University of Missouri-Kansas City and then set out to “see the USA with her résumé” as a regional theater actor, performing in theaters across the country and in London.
In 1989, Caren made her way to New York, where she studied and performed in Off-Off-Broadway shows and more regional shows. Not long after arriving in the city, she bumped into a fellow actor heading out of town for a show who asked Caren if she could cover her job at a health care public relations firm while she was away. That began Caren’s double life as an actor and PR professional, as she started developing health education PR materials for health care companies while continuing to pursue an acting career.
Not long after that, Caren connected with a talent agent who was interested in representing her, but there was a catch: The agent couldn’t officially sign her until she had booked a Broadway show. Determined to make this happen, Caren auditioned for and landed a role in the Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge.
Following that appearance, Caren began receiving auditions for soap operas, the original Law and Order show, and ultimately Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Creating the role of Captain Judith Siper, NYPD Forensics, Caren worked on SVU for 12 years. Thanks to her health care PR training, she was able to approach the character with an extensive knowledge of medical terminology. While excited to be a part of the show, Caren admits experiencing times of stress from working a fulltime job while taping. “I can remember taking client calls from the back of a trailer,” she recalled. “The hardest part was saying my lines in as few takes as possible, but well enough to be invited back. I went in, got the job done, and went back to the office.”
Since her days on Law and Order, Caren has been recognized all over the country for her role. She enjoys the time she spent with the cast and says she feels honored to be a part of such an iconic show’s humble beginnings. Judith Siper was her last television role, while the last play that she participated in was All of My Sons at the Globe Theater in San Diego in 2003.
Today, Caren channels her creative energy into her role here at VNS Health. She still ponders a potential return to the stage and screen later in life, however. Stay tuned—one of these days it might be a familiar looking “Lillian Wald” who tempts you to buy car insurance on late night TV!
To see more Hidden Talent profiles on Frontline, click here.
