Jake Schwencke

Jake Schwencke was born on December 9, 1998 in Brooklyn, New York. He began performing professionally at the age of 8, booking a national Benadryl commercial and the National tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down The Wind, both of which he auditioned for on the same day. Jake made his Broadway debut, originating the role of "Randolph" in Roundabout Theatre Company's Bye Bye Birdie, starring alongside stage and screen legends such as John Stamos, Gina Gershon, Bill Irwin, and Nolan Gerard Funk. Jake also joined the cast of Billy Elliot in the role of "Michael", directed by Stephen Daldry and music by Elton John. Other credits include playing "Gavroche" in Les Miserables, "Jesse" in Distracted with Cynthia Nixon, and Chaplin:The Musical at the La Jolla Playhouse, starring opposite Rob McClure and Jenn Colella. Jake's TV credits include What Would You Do? (2009), Good Morning America (1975), Late Show with David Letterman (1993), Saturday Night Live (1975), the Lion Constellation in Dora the Explorer (2000), and more. His film work includes Contest (2013) (2013) alongside Katherine McNamara and Kenton Duty, as well as Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009). Jake also voiced the iconic Campbell's soup jingle, "So Many Many Reasons its so Mmm Mmm Good". He has performed in commercials for products such as Weight Watchers, AT&T, Radio Shack, etc. and voiced the Dino Dan (2010) Nickelodeon Animated game.

In addition to stage and screen work, Jake is also an advocate for education. He graduated from his local high school as valedictorian, and is now studying at Harvard University, pursuing the college's first joint-concentration in Film and Neuroscience. He believes filmmakers must possess a great intuition for cognition, and thinking about these fields together can provide for more compelling movies and a greater understanding of event perception. He is set to complete his joint-thesis and graduate in May 2021.

Jake's passion for storytelling has lead him to writing and directing projects of him own as well. His original short film, "Chores" (2016), earned him local and national recognition, with awards including the All American High School National Film Festival's Audience Award (Finalist for Best Screenplay), the James Gandolfini Best of Fest Award at the NJ Filmmakers of Tomorrow Showcase, and the Best Fiction Film award at Ramapo College. Jake has created numerous other fiction shorts and documentaries, continuing to develop his voice and style as a storyteller. His other projects range from a 30-minute Pilot Episode of a student-made spin-off of HBO's Sonic Highways, partnered with the Rock & Roll Forever Foundation, to a social-experiment project titled, "Third Party Compliments" (2018) which partnered with the Harvard Marketing Department and garnered over 120K views, becoming one of the University's most popular videos of the year.