This Scriber Lake High senior shines behind the stage scenes

EDMONDS — A senior at Scriber Lake High School, 18-year-old Jenna Jensen has unique perspectives about the world around her. Whether it’s through writing fan fiction or being backstage at a play, Jensen explores alternate vantage points. Jensen is graduating this spring and wants to pursue a career in theater set design.

Question: Do you have a background in theater?

Answer: I was in a lot of elementary school productions that sparked it all. I’m not really into being on the stage but behind the scenes is a lot of fun.

Q: What do you like about being behind the scenes?

A: I feel like you get to be more immersed into it. The audience or the actor gets one bit of it, but if you’re working with the sound or the sets you get to see the actors, but you also get to see everything else.

Q: What’s your favorite musical?

A: Right now it’s Billy Elliot.

Q: So you want to go into set design?

A: I want to start going to an art school to study it. I was thinking CalArts, but tuition is huge there.

Q: What’s your dream set to design?

A: Something like the Billy Elliot set because there’s not a ton to it. But if you were to watch the show, there’s so many small bits that add into a huge, happy but also adrenaline- filled feeling.

Q: Have you always been a creative person?

A: I think I was always creative, but I think I’ve only recently started to use it and access it more. I started painting little things in my room and in my rock ‘n’ roll class last year I started writing lyrics and stuff.

Q: You’re good friends with the librarian at Scriber — tell me what that space means to you?

A: When I was a freshman — I’m kind of like a legacy — it was my sister’s senior year and I didn’t make any friends all year, so I would just sit with her in the library during lunch every day. Since my sister graduated, I have been a teacher’s assistant in the library three or four times. It’s kind of like my de-stress place. It’s kind of like a mix between the aura the room itself gives off, because it’s just a really warm room, and it’s also Leighanne Law, the librarian. She’s like a ray of sunshine.

Q: Has being involved with the library led you to other interests?

A: It made me want to write in our school’s book. So as of last January or February, I am a published author with the book my school does every year.

Q: What’s the book?

A: Every year the English teacher here is talked to by a bunch of different students who want to share their stories, things they’ve struggled with like mental health, abuse, homelessness.

Q: What did you write about?

A: It’s about me seeing my biological dad for the first time in nine years, how he wasn’t a great person and how I have struggled with a lot of mental health issues because of him and other things going on.

Q: Can you tell me about a time you’ve faced adversity?

A: That’s actually kind of difficult because Scriber Lake is actually a really good place at making everyone feel like they’re welcome and like they aren’t any different from anyone else. If I had gone to my home school, Meadowdale, I would’ve probably suffered a lot more anxiety than I was. Here the population is like 200 and at Meadowdale it’s like 1,600.

Q: You said you like to read — what’s your favorite genre?

A: It’s dorky, but I like to read fan fiction. It’s fun because you’ve read the actual stories then you get to see all of these other perceptions and different stories that could have happened. It’s just like watching the same thing but altered and it’s just exciting.

Q: What kind?

A: Harry Potter.

Q: Have you tried writing?

A: Yeah. I haven’t finished any, but I’m workin’ on it.

Julia-Grace Sanders: 425-339-3439; jgsanders@heraldnet.com.