Episode 580: Empowering Survivors of Sexual Assault with Jenna Cox-Hadley

Jenna Cox-Hadley is the composer, lyricist, and playwright for Wait for Her, an original musical. Jenna grew up in a musical and mixed-race family in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Throughout her education, she distinguished herself with her creative mash-ups, ear for harmonies, and musical leadership. She majored in Mathematics and Russian at the U.S. Naval Academy while singing in the Gospel Choir--including a performance for President Obama and Tom Hanks at the Kennedy Center. Jenna also studied opera, tap dancing, Irish step dancing, and, at Wheaton College, jazz voice to deepen her creative skill-set. Jenna's deep empathy, career adjustment from Navy to theater maker, and wide cross-cultural experiences in Central Asia, Turkey, and Germany give her a rich palette of artistic inspiration. While in college, Jenna's heart broke learning how many women—many of whom she was close to—had experienced sexual assault. Jenna began writing Wait for Her, hoping that her grief and intensive research on trauma could be transformed into a life-giving and healing story for survivors and their communities. In This Episode Jenna’s website Music and Embodied Cognition: Listening, Moving, Feeling, and Thinking (Musical Meaning and Interpretation), Arnie Cox Wait For Her, the musical