Beaver Reflections:
Although I was battling a sickness throughout high school and was part-time at school some years, my senior year was great. Coming back to Beaver full-time was amazing and my friend Dan Katz and I started The Beaver Reader newspaper. It was a very formative experience for me. Beaver’s administration gave us the green light and we were able to create something we were passionate about. We recruited a bunch of friends to do it with us and it began to expand. We had a website and a Twitter account back in 2008, in addition to two print editions.

What is #happeningnow in your life:
After studying creative writing and theater arts at UPenn, I moved to New York City to work in theater for my day job while writing plays and musicals on the side. For 3.5 years, I worked for a Broadway producer as an assistant and then her associate. Now I write plays and musicals full-time. During quarantine, I wrote two virtual musicals for young performers. These shows were released and designed to be performed remotely and connect stories through boxes on a screen.

“I like to work on a lot of different projects at the same time. When I hit a wall with one project, I pivot to a different one. Instead of forcing productivity on a certain project, I am able to let my ideas flow naturally.”

– Jessica Penzias ’08

Advice to Beaver students:
If there’s something you want to do, ask for the support.