Mahalet Tegenu (she/her) is an Ethiopian-American writer, actor, model and film director based in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2022 with a BFA in Dramatic Writing. Since graduating, Mahalet made her theater debut as the lead actress in Midnight in Abyssinia for CultureHub at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. She has gone on to perform a lead role in Sun at the Brick Theater, and narrated a staged reading of Red Taxi at the world-renowned Signature Theatre. Named an “up and comer” by Broadway World, Mahalet’s writing has been produced by Project Y Theatre Company. She is the founder and lead producer of Pencils of Color, an all Black sketch comedy group! Alongside her group, she has written and performed sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB), the Brooklyn Comedy Collective (BCC), Caveat NYC, The PIT, Magnet Theater, and more. Mahalet worked as a writer’s production assistant on Full Circle: a Max limited series.