Penn Undergrads You Should Know About Vol. 4

What do you love about television? What makes television more exciting than cinema or theater for me is that television isn’t stagnant – you’re constantly putting your characters through new situations, and learning about them every week. Friends was on air for 10 years – didn’t they start to feel like family by the end? You spend half an hour a week with anyone for a full decade, there’s no way you’re not a little emotionally invested.  What are you involved in that allows you to express/explore that? I am director and line producer for Penn’s comedic web series, Classless TV. It’s a labor of love, but at the end of day we put out a product that is entirely our own, and it’s hard not to feel really good about that.  Additionally, this summer, I interned with The Second City, a major improv/sketch comedy theater in Chicago. Everyone there is so smart and so funny, you learn comedy just through osmosis.

How’d you get started? I was lost freshman year. I was dabbling in a couple different things, but nothing I was really passionate about. Luckily, I met Classless TV’s old head writer almost by accident, who convinced me to come to just one writer’s meeting, and I was hooked.What/Who is your biggest inspiration and why? Who do you admire? I have the biggest crush on Mindy Kaling. She talks a lot in her book “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns” about how you shouldn’t worry about being cool in high school (which I wasn’t) and you can still be cool and funny later in life. She is not the typical woman you see on television, and she went from being a last-minute hire on The Office writing staff to having a show with her name in the title.

What’s your favorite Penn tradition? I’m very excited for Hey Day and all the other special privileges that come with being a junior. My parents both went to Penn, so I know watching me go through all the old traditions is meaningful to them, too.