Jess is an actress who takes making you laugh very, very seriously. 😊 Empowering people to feel their feelings, and enjoy the good ones as often as possible by helping make people laugh, is her mission in life. Really.

Born and raised (for the first decade of her life) in Denver, Colorado, Jess climbed trees, sang in her public school’s gospel choir, hiked, camped, backpacked, skied, and made snow angels. She then moved to Montclair, NJ, where she continued her public school education, and from 10-18 acted and sang in all of the shows and choirs.

Jess realized she wanted to act for the rest of her life while waiting in the wings of Montclair High School’s Little Theater, watching the ensemble of “Comedy of Errors” entertain and draw the audience in with live music and circus tricks (choreographed by Rick Sordelet… we had the hookup). The audience was entranced. They lit up with delight. Everyone was transfixed. They had been transported into a new reality. So was Jess. It was magical. Jess burst out of the wings to join in the fun for Act I, Scene 2 (“Return’d so soon! rather approach’d too late!”), and shortly thereafter went on to receive her BFA in Acting, from Syracuse University.

Between acting gigs and rehearsals, Jess hustled selling fancy clothing on commission at Bloomingdale’s on 59th Street in her early twenties, served high end food and made fancy drinks in the hospitality industry for years (professionally bartending until the pandemic), and currently works part-time substitute teaching adorable and rambunctious Pre-K through 6th graders. She excels in high stress environments, but is grateful to now work one where she feels she can contribute as much as she can in the arts.

Though she lives and works around the hustle bustle of New York City, she has always tried to maintain her easy going, sunny, Colorado nature. Being kind and uplifting is a core value of hers (though she enjoys good-spirited sarcasm!) Experiencing an average of 322 days of Colorado sunlight a year for ten years just had a permanent heart warming effect. Homey (not homely!) is Jess’s favorite word people have used to describe her. Descriptors tied for second place are spunky and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Jess is also a singer, writer, producer, physical comedian extraordinaire, improv artist, voiceover actor, and puppy mom. Her large, close-knit Czech-Irish extended family is super important to her and they will gladly adopt you in if you would like, but you will be most comfortable hanging with them if you love the arts, lots of noise and jazz, and believe in social-justice.

Jess loves comedy but also legit theater, film, and tv. She revels in the perfect harmony of comedy and drama when performing Shakespeare. She also loves working on new scripts, and was thrilled to originate more than 10 new roles in the past year and a half!

She hopes you have a terrific day, that you find a reason to smile, and that you don’t find too many typos in her website. 😉

Thanks for stopping by and looking around!