Jenna Cole
Visiting Assistant Professor of Acting
MFA – American Conservatory Theater
BA – Thomas Edison State College
Actors Equity Association
Screen Actors Guild
Jenna Cole is currently in her third year of teaching at WVU, having taught Leadership Studies’ Stage Presence and acting classes last year, assisted on dialects for Dracula, and directed La Ronde, a Studio acting project. She appeared last season in Geva Theatre Center’s Plays in Progress as Matilda Joslyn Gage in Waltzing Matilda by Mimi Kennedy, a one-woman play about Matild’s struggle within the Women’s Rights Movement.
Jenna has taught at Chapman University, Pomona College, South Coast Repertory’s Youth Conservatory and Summer Theatre Workshop, Geva Theatre Center’s Summer Academy and the Vita Shakespeare Festival. She was a resident artist and teacher for 15 years at A Noise Within Theatre in Los Angeles, teaching speech, voice and Shakespeare in the Professional Intern Program, the Young Actor’s Workshop, and Summer With Shakespeare. Through the student outreach program she has taught at numerous schools including: UC San Luis Obispo, UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, East Los Angeles College, El Camino College, La Canada and Hoover High. Jenna has directed productions of As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Mill Girls, and Rabbit, among others, and has been a vocal/dialect coach for many shows including Zoot Suit, The Miser, Trelawney of the Wells, and The Fifth of July. She is currently a candidate for certification with Fitzmaurice Voice-work.
As an actor, Jenna has performed in It’s A Wonderful Life (with Alfred Molina and Michael Richards), Private Lives, and Star Quality (American Premiere) at the Pasadena Playhouse, the world premiere of the musical The Wind in the Willows at South Coast Repertory, Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl), Much Ado About Nothing, The Seagull, Design for Living (Garland Awards), Hay Fever, The Three Sisters, Tartuffe, and The Winter’s Tale (L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award) at A Noise Within. Other theatres include: the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson, Shakespeare Orange County, Geva Theatre Center, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Sacramento Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, and PlayMakers Repertory.
Film and Television: The Homestead, Her Last Chance, The Nightstalker, Changes, LA Law, Picket Fences, Pros and Cons, The George Carlin Show, Hardball, Saved by the Bell, The Bold and the Beautiful, and numerous commercials. Her voice-over recording includes work for the DVD special features for The Hours, The Passion of the Christ, King Kong, Laura, Pooh’s Grand Adventure, and Charlotte’s Web 2.