YaleWomen recognizes and celebrates all career paths of those in our community. This webinar will feature a panel of Yale alums who have made successful careers in the performing arts. Our discussion will focus on their career trajectories, how they choose which projects to take on, and the future of their art form. Questions are highly encouraged as we all learn more and gain insights about the performing arts together!  

Panelists: 

Emily Jenda: Actor/Singer/Songwriter, BA ‘10 

Emily Jenda is an actor/singer/writer who proudly hails from Auburn, Alabama. She made her Broadway debut performing in the hit musical The Book of Mormon and went on to portray all three of the Schuyler Sisters in the groundbreaking musical Hamilton. Emily’s New York stage debut as Alice in the musical Drat! The Cat! was named one of Backstage’s “Memorable New York Performances” alongside performances from stars like Mark Rylance and Viola Davis. Her other favorite credits include Caroline, or Change, The Bodyguard, Regina Spektor’s Beauty, and Lost in the Stars at City Center Encores! In addition to graduating from Yale University with distinction, she’s also completed studies at New York’s Upright Citizen’s Brigade, Chicago’s Second City, and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. As a writer, Emily creates Black characters who are as unapologetically messy as she is. Her television comedy pilot Miss Alabama is currently in development with CBS Studios.

Chiara Klein: Director of Producing and Artistic Planning, DRA ‘17, SOM ‘17 

Chiara Klein is the Director of Producing and Artistic Planning at The Public Theater in New York. Previously, she served as the Director of Artistic Producing at Baltimore Center Stage, driving artistic operations and strategic innovation. Prior to BCS, Chiara the first national Mobile Unit initiative for The Public, a five-state tour of Lynn Nottage’s SWEAT. A fourth-generation New Yorker, Chiara's theatrical career began at 14, producing and directing musicals at her synagogue. After attending Dartmouth College, she founded MaineStage Shakespeare, an outdoor repertory company and youth theater camp in Southern Maine, and served as Artistic Director for seven years. She has also worked at Yale Rep, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and Marvell Rep. Chiara produces and emcees the annual Ms. New York Senior America Pageant, celebrating women over 60, and teaches at Baruch College. She earned an MFA from Yale School of Drama and an MBA from Yale SOM, and received the George C. White Prize.

Olivia Vote: Opera Singer, MMus ‘08 

Lauded for her “theatrical magnetism,” American mezzo-soprano Olivia Vote is continuing to garner success across opera and concert stages. Since joining the roster of the Metropolitan Opera in 2018, Olivia has performed several roles, including Neris is Medea, Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos, Neferneferuaten in the Grammy-winning recording of Ahknaten, and Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto. Later this season, she will join the Las Vegas Symphony for an evening of operatic favorites, before returning to the Metropolitan Opera stage as Zweite Dame in a new production of Die Zauberflöte under the baton of Natalie Stutzmann. Also, in the current season, Olivia performed with Opera Southwest on a New Years’ Eve Gala, as Dorabella in Così fan tutte with Cedar Rapids Opera, and in a highly anticipated workshop of The Righteous by Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith for Santa Fe Opera.

Moderated by: 

Claudia Rosenthal: Consultant, BA ‘08, MM ‘14  

Claudia recently graduated with her MBA from Columbia Business School, focusing on strategy and management. While there, she served as a Career Management Center Fellow and as VP of Mentorship in the Management Consulting Association. Last summer, Claudia interned as a Human Capital consultant with Deloitte Consulting and will join the firm full-time. 

Before business school, Claudia was a professional opera singer and performed in operas, recitals, concert halls, and music festivals in the United States and abroad, including the Tanglewood Music Center, Wolf Trap Opera, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, and the Paris Arts Arena. She also garnered multiple international vocal awards from the George London Foundation, the Matheus Sullivan Foundation, the Metropolitan National Council Auditions, and the Richard F. Gold Career Grant.

Claudia has degrees from both Yale College and the Yale School of Music and is a proud Governing Council Member of YaleWomen.