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Meet Fil-Am Zoe... ‘I didn’t even choose the name Liza’: Liza Soberano...
had to be a little refined a little bit of that classicalness to it, which I think is a little harder.”
Both musicals have also cast Filipinos in principal roles: Rachel Ann Go and Christine Allado as Schuyler sisters in Hamilton and Andrea Macasaet as the original Anne Boleyn on Six. Jensen remembers bonding well with Hamilton’s Angelica tour cast including fellow Filipino Americans Alaina Vi Maderal and Jon Viktor Corpuz. She fondly recalled the day she left the company since they celebrated in a Filipino restaurant in Columbus, Ohio.
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“That was one of the best parts about being in Hamilton. Growing up I definitely had some Filipino people in my life, but I was surrounded by predominantly white people,” Jensen shared.
“There were so many of us. We called ourselves the HamilAsians. I’ve always wanted so desperately to get to connect with other Filipino people.”
“Obviously, I have my mom, but I feel like when she came here, she felt like she needed to assimilate. So I’ve always just been searching for people to connect with culturally on those things,” she said.
Zoe’s mother – Lani Lumanog Jensen is a registered nurse. She was born in Bataan. Her eldest brother was in the navy and he was able to sponsor the entire family to come to the U.S.
Her mother taught her how to cook Filipino classics, which comes in handy when sudden cravings arise.
“To this day, like every week I’ll either cook adobo or sinigang or pancit. I always like to have something Filipino at home, a little bit of comfort,” she quipped.
Zoe Jensen didn’t expect the chance to be on Six to come at this point in her life. After all, she has done more than 650 shows in Hamilton and she was looking forward to more.
“It always surprises you when it comes. I really thought that I was going to be with Hamilton for a while but yeah, Six honestly exceeded my expectations in a lot of ways and the main reason is just getting to do it with my group of six and our alternates,” she said. n
