The stage is where Finley Jenne shines. It’s where they feel comfortable.
“I always felt a connection to being on stage and being on camera,” Finley shares. “I started speaking at 9 months old … [after that] my parents never heard the end of it. I always wanted to sing at every family party. I wanted everybody’s eyes on me.”
In first and second grade, Finley’s parents put “me into an acting class in Haddonfield and I did three or four shows with them before discovering the youth theater community in Collingswood” which was founded by the late Barbara Lefkoe in spring 1995.
“In the fourth grade, I joined the youth theater and after that there was no stopping me.”
After eighth grade, Finley was asked to become a stage manager for the Collingswood Youth Theatre shows, which they described as an “awesome” experience.
On the theater stage or behind the scenes, Finley has essentially done it all and more. Charles Hartung, who directs and produces the annual Collingswood Middle School musical, also provided Finley the opportunity to block, a term in theater that directs and provides specific cues (movements or expressions) for the actors and actresses on stage.
As stage manager, Finley focuses on the sets of the show and where they need to be at different times.
“I’m usually wearing my headset making sure everybody is prepared to move [the sets],” they said.
And although Finley loves it all, “singing and acting” is what they loves to do.
Speaking in front of a large crowd, no problem! Put a microphone in Finley’s hands, they promises, “I will ramble.”
The stage is where Finley Jenne shines. Finley was involved in 24 Collingswood school productions during they’s school tenure.
“I think part of me knew I was supposed to be up on the stage even before acting classes,” they said. “Especially in elementary school I had no shame. When middle school came … I got banned from eating lunch in [the classroom] because I would sing so loud every day, all my friends and I would break into song. They moved us to the lunchroom and we did the same.”
As Finley’s high school days are coming to an end with graduation on June 20, it is a bittersweet time reflecting on fun times from playing Mr. Mushnick in Collingswood High School’s Spring musical “Little Shop of Horrors” to last year’s donkey character in “Shrek The Musical.”
For the past two years, Finley’s goal was to focus on the physical comedy of they’s characters. Three years ago, a critique of they’s performance as the Minstrel in “Once Upon a Mattress” stated, “I wasn’t committed to my physical comedy.”
“Since then I’ve really focused on making sure my movements are large and I follow through,” they said.
In May, Finley organized and directed they’s last Broadway night.
“It’s kind of like a cabaret type of thing,” they said. “Students came and auditioned any acts they were interested in performing. I selected them and held rehearsals and put them in performance order. It was free with donations only.”
It was the fifth annual Broadway night, which Finley hopes will continue when she moves on. The night was previously run by a teacher before student Amalia Messick brought it back to life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When Amalia graduated, she asked if I would take the role as director,” Finely said. “I just couldn’t believe it; I looked up to her so much and I really hope that I did justice to the program that she brought back to life.”
If not on stage, you could find Finley with they’s Odyssey of the Mind team. They joined Odyssey in the sixth grade and it has been a big part of they’s high school years.
“It’s a creative problem-solving team [that works together to solve] two types of problems in competition – a long-term problem and then there is a spontaneous problem,” they explained.
Finley’s team – made up of seven members – has advanced to World Finals for the past four years, which are either held at Iowa State University or Michigan State University. This year’s World Finals was held in Michigan in May.
Teams are able to select what kind of problem they would like to solve. Each year they have selected the “theater problem.”
“You go up and perform your solution to the long-term problem, which involves creating a short play, building all the sets, making all the costumes and creating special effects that are required and scored,” they said. “It’s so much fun.”
This year, along with making World Finals, their team earned a Ranatra Fusca Creativity Award, an award not given lightly.
“Only one other Collingswood team earned the award two years ago,” Finley said. “We won for our solution that takes place during a live stream. To create a live stream kind of effect, I built an automated chat box that has new comments that pop up and relate to what’s happening.”
Messages that are magnets are on a conveyer belt constantly refreshing a new feed, they said.
Theater, Odyssey and oh, how could we forget choir, which has also been a big part of Finley’s past four years. Freshman year was the year after quarantine and Finley found comfort in choir class.
“I really just walked in here like we knew each other,” Finley quipped to Christin Introcaso, choir teacher at Collingswood High School. “I did a lot of choir. I did regular concert choir, madrigal choir and chamber choir. I did All South Jersey Choir for the past three years in a row.”
This past school year, Finley came in third out of the tenors in All South Jersey Choir auditions in November 2024. Some 630 kids auditioned, with 118 selected.
“It’s a magical experience,” they said. “I would be there 24/7 if I could. It’s all the most diligent singers in South Jersey and everyone’s so locked in on the music and where and how we should be doing everything. It’s just so magical to get to feel it with everybody.”
Introcaso said in her 22 years of teaching, students come and go, but students like Finley “you will never forget.”
“Finley is definitely in that category of people who left a mark and there will be a Finley-shaped hole when they are gone and that will not be replaced,” she said. “It really is what it is. At the same time, I want them to go off and do all the things. That’s what’s supposed to happen, so it’s both sad, but correct.”
So as graduation nears, Finley, who was born and raised in Collingswood, is “almost excited.”
“Excited to have a life and see what’s going to happen, but also it’s so terrifying because I have built my roots here and kind of only here,” they said.
They is not going far as they will attend Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia for its accelerated occupational therapy doctorate program on a full-tuition bicentennial scholarship.
Theater and choir are not going anywhere for the “theater/musical Phanatic.”
“I would like to really continue helping with youth theater [in Collingswood],” they said, adding she is now old enough to join the Collingswood Community Theatre. “I will definitely be joining the Thomas Jefferson Choir. It’s a pretty big choir with both staff and students together and it says they perform a few times a year. I’m excited about that. I haven’t found much information about theater [at Thomas Jefferson]. I think they have a theatre club so I’ll join that.”
After Broadway Night and 24 Collingswood school productions the number of theater shows completed in school will not go up anymore.
“I cried a lot … it’s bittersweet.”
