Arts

I was very active in choir and Theatre at Summerville HS. I had the honor of representing Jazz at 8 in Carnegie Hall and was chosen to be a featured soloist at the NY Vocal Jazz festival with Phil Mattson. I played the Baker’s Wife in my senior production of Into the Woods, a gorgeous Sondheim musical directed by Ms. Young. The music is still in my brain and heart.

Academics

I took AP English and Spanish classes and was First Alternate representing Academic Decathlon at SHS. I very much enjoyed the yearbook class with Ms. Shaw and AP English with Mr. DeGennaro, as both involved creative challenges, thinking of new ways to share an experience, and collaborative efforts in class. I still remember all the names of the capitols of South American countries thanks to Ms. Encinas.

Athletics

I was one of the undaunted slower members of the cross country team, and even managed to be the fastest of the slowest at one race, allowing us to medal in the competition we ran as a team. Even when the timekeepers were packing up the tent and awaiting my return from a three-mile run that took most of my peers under 18 minutes, I was proud of my efforts. I never walked a race, mostly because I ran about the pace of someone who walked.

Clubs

ASB President, Student Government, and CSF Lifetime Member. I helped plan events and rallies, and spent time working on projects that involved the student body. Crepe paper everywhere, all the time, and I can still smell the Orange puff paint and black Sharpies at 7am waking all of us up. Mr. Heldstab, I suspected, had been awake for hours before that point because he had incredibly explosive energy. It’s a brave man who faces teenagers with that amount of pep.

Awards/Recognitions

Mr. Christiansen’s Student of the Year in Government, and I sold him an ad in the yearbook. No other accolades needed, that was the only two things that seemed impossible to get.

Activities/Experiences That Shaped Me

When I stood on the stage in New York City, I knew I wanted more. I craved creative collaboration, and people who thought that life was worth being fun. I wrote a lot in high school, had some of my essays shared and I still am writing today.

Biography

I’ve been selected to sing in front of thousands of people at Carnegie Hall in New York City. A bald, intimidating man who has been arranging most of the Jazz music I sing in the choir has decided I will represent my school and community. Years later, I will pass that same stage on my way to a restaurant shift while hoping to cover the rent in my East Harlem Apartment. I’m writing one-person shows in the Bowery, and I’ve graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BFA in Acting. And yet, there are so many more left turns to go.

When I got to high school, I threw myself into academics thinking I could make up for the amount of bullying I faced in Bay Area elementary schools. By the time I arrived at Summerville, I was ready to throw myself into everything because I wanted to feel on-paper-accomplished. Everything was gearing me towards college and I figured four years in High School wasn’t long enough to make lifelong friends. I’m glad I was proven wrong, as evidenced by the group text I have going with my closest friends from Summerville, to this day.

Still, with all the work I put into my high school experience I discovered something incredible: theater and music nerds. I auditioned for women’s jazz choir, show choir, and then Jazz at 8. In my Senior Year, I made friends with incredibly talented people who, for their Senior Project, decided to work on different aspects of the Spring Musical “Into The Woods”. I was cast as the Baker’s Wife and threw myself into a role and an ensemble. I felt alive on stage, seen and wonderful – having a group of talented and creative individuals to play with me gave me so much joy.

Fast forward a few left turns later, and I’m living at home at the age of twenty-eight. I had retired from the pursuit of acting, as a recession and the feeling of hopelessness set in. I was living with my parents like many millennial children, and taking classes at Colombia College in film and multimedia to get some marketable creative skills. Through an ad in the paper, I noticed that there was a filmmaker from San Francisco, who wanted to make a movie about Summerville High School students and their real lives as they saw them. I worked as his production manager for three years, and our film “The Other Kids” went on the film festival circuit in 2015.

Ten years after I graduated, I found myself wandering Summerville High School’s halls with an entirely different lens. I was shooting B-Roll, organizing shoots and equipment, and utilizing the talents of film students at Summerville High School to help us make this film a reality – both in front of and behind the camera. Summerville and Connections Academy students were doing the work of professional indie filmmakers and actors and it was inspiring to watch.

Myself and the filmmaker, Chris Brown, covered the true stories of six students, who were so much braver and more willing to be vulnerable than I was at that age. Whereas I had used the theater to mask myself, these students took all of their masks off and shared their lives in a very beautiful way. I was so proud to help make this project and grateful to Summerville Staff and Students for being open to that kind of art-making experience.

Today I live in Oakland, California. I work as a Project Manager at a local IT service provider and make art whenever I can. I still live for the theater nerds who love to share their gifts. I have written comedy films for Sacramento Film Festival and Sketch Comedy for the SF-based group “Killing My Lobster”. I am going to see Lizzo at the Chase Center in November. Life is good.

To all staff and teachers of SHS, thank you for giving your time and energy to developing new minds with complicated feelings. To all the students, find your weirdos and don’t wait for permission to make cool things. And don’t be afraid of left turns – they are sometimes radically surprising.