What is Penguin Productions?

Penguin Productions unites youth leadership and adult mentorship to co-create theater and cultivate a healthy, equitable, thriving future through:

-Empowering confident, thoughtful youth leaders
-Making invigorating, inspiring, joyful theater
-Creating diverse, inclusive spaces where everyone belongs
-Nurturing artistic discovery and growth
-Providing cost-free programming

Meet the Penguins

Tera Winter

Producing Director

Tera is a passionate techie and proud jack of many trades, wielding the spreadsheet and the drill in roughly equal measure. She is a senior at West Seattle High School, and joined Penguin in spring of 2023 on the design team of Hand to God. Favorite credits include Hand to God (Props), The Good Doctor (Director), Animal Farm (Set Designer), The Effect (Stage Manager), and Falsettoland (Stage Manager/Production Manager). As Producing Director, she is focused on giving teens opportunities for their ideas and leadership to be realized onstage.

Shana Bestock

Executive Director

Shana is a writer, educator, theater artist, and non-profit leader based in Seattle, WA. She has directed over 200 productions with youth ensembles and overseen over 120 professional productions. Shana works with both classic and contemporary texts, and has commissioned, produced, and directed many world premieres. Shana is currently ACT Theatre’s Artistic Associate, Education and Engagement. She is also a Fulbright Specialist, working internationally at the intersections of theater, social justice, and community building. She was a member of the ArtEquity cohort of 2016-17 and of the Leadership Tomorrow Class of ’21, engaging with cross-sector leaders around regional issues through an equity lens. From 2001-2016, Shana served as Seattle Public Theater’s Artistic and Education Director. Through her creative and community work, she strives to increase our capacity to connect, reflect, and create in order to make a more curious, compassionate and creative world.

To learn more about Shana, visit www.shanabestock.com

Nadia Hammon

Graphic Designer

Nadia is a senior studying linguistics at the University of Washington. Her previous theater experience includes acting in Young Americans’ Theatre Company’s 2023 season. She has always enjoyed drawing and theater, and she is looking forward to combining those passions in her work at Penguin. In her free time, she enjoys playing cello, creative writing, baking, and crochet.

Production History

Penguins Who Took Flight

Anna Klein, Sarah Albertson, Kyna Shilling, Kayla Brooks, Bella Zhou, Noelle McCabe, Linda Yan

Kyle Gerstel, Producing Artistic Director Emeritus

Kayla Brooks

Sara Albertson

Anna Klein

Eileen MacDonald

Noelle McCabe

Kyna Shilling

Valentine
Wulf

Linda Yan

Bella Zhou

The magic happens in the community, that it’s about the people, not the theater or the program… it comes from YOU and your commitment to 'wasting time learning things' and your belief that kids can accomplish more than they think they can, which every production bears out.

Thank YOU for the show. I have to say it was the most thoroughly entertaining political satire we’ve seen in a long time. You did a great job with those kids, integrating the whole spectrum of talent into a delightful show that hopped.

...a community based on a strong vision of supporting kids and emerging adults through meaningful theater events.

❮ ❯