WRITING and POETRY
Jen re-focused her writing career in the last four years as a founding member of the Pride Poets team as part of a City of West Hollywood Arts project writing and performing pop-up poetry in the June 2019 “One City One Pride” events and ongoing Pride celebrations of the last three years. Since falling in love with the art of typewriter poetry, Jen has a collection of dog humor poems and enjoys writing for birthday parties, corporate events, and other LGBTQ events. She enjoys being an event entertaining guests with personalized poems, engaging them in an unexpected improv conversation.
Jen contributed writing to Ivan Estrada’s new inspirational book Brand with Purpose. She was the strategist for the book giveaway program that was a community outreach effort to under-served students who want this career and leadership resource.
When Akbar’s Queer Slam was happening in person and then online, Jen was often at their open mic. You can listen an episode on that podcast on the Press page. Some poems and writing can be found on Medium.com or Instagram @jen.and.potato
MUSIC and VOICE
Jen co-wrote and co-produced the song, “Found,” with artist Shiah Luna. They had the opportunity to perform a preview of it at WeHo Pride 2023. Take a listen on Spotify or other listening platforms. She also taught a songwriting class with TransLounge and shared the zine with the students to inspire their writing with prompts on self-reflection.
Jen is a songwriter who has studied at the Songwriting School of Los Angeles and recently was part of a Songwriting Retreat in Ojai. She also was a student of Mark Salzburg’s Musical Theater writing class and Mark Winkler’s Lyrics class. Jen likes to write and perform musical parodies.
As a singer, she has sung with choirs in SF Bay Area, New York City, and Los Angeles. She has also sung with an A Capella group at University of Michigan.
As an instrumentalist, she is a pianist, violinist, violist. A recent project was a 4-hand piano arrangement excerpt of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, Allegretto.
As a voice artist, she has studied at Kalmenson and taken ADR/Looping workshops with Johnny Gidcomb and Lynneanne Zager. Jen speaks fluently in Cantonese Chinese and Spanish. She also has studied French and can sing and learn pronunciation in many languages.
FILM + MEDIA
Jen is the writer and co-producer of a short film, “Shadow of Love” (queer Asian American drama) premiered in 2020 with LGBTQ and Asian film festivals internationally. She is also the writer/director of two music videos, one of which she is the film composer. She currently has several other TV/film projects in development, including a multicultural coming-of-age story for young people and a children’s book series. She has taken various writing classes with excellent teachers such as Keith Giglio (comedy screenwriting) and Mark Saltzman (musical theater). She is an active member of Women of Color Unite, Women in Film, and the LA Guild of Puppetry.
IMPROV + COMEDY
She has studied comedy improv at the Groundlings, Second City, the Ruby LA and ioWest. Currently taking classes and performing with the Ensemble group of the Asian American improv group Cold Tofu, she can find a place to create scenes and make some jokes about her Chinese-American experience. She has received competitive scholarships at the Groundlings and Upright Citizens Brigade. As a standup comedian, she has performed at open mic events such as the Dare to Flair Queer Open Mic and Gorgeous Ladies of Comedy, and was a featured comedian with FredTalks in Santa Monica and part the 2019 Queer Comedy Festival at the Ruby LA.
Photo credit: NJP Photography
JEN CHENG 