Tenaya Cleveland

Tenaya Cleveland was born in Hawaii and grew up in California As a child she sang in the Malcolm X Jazz Chorus led by jazz pianist Dick Whittington who enlisted jazz greats such as Bobby Hutcherson Mary Stallings and Richie Cole to play sing with the kids at concerts At 10 she made her public acting debut as The Kid in the play Bleacher Bums After years of acting in theater background work and small independent films she landed a small role on HBOs acclaimed Six Feet Under 2001 Ms Cleveland is a supporter of animal and human rights and the environment These passions drew her to work behind the scenes on Josh Tickells multiawardwinning documentary Fuel 2008 which won the prestigious Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival Director Ambika Leigh also a close friend cast Cleveland as the lead in her dramatic short film Watching followed by a quirky supporting role in her multiawardwinning short Switchboard 2011 Soon after filming Switchboard Tenaya toured the US playing a triplecharacter role in the live comedy The Moderns She was then discovered by the Emmywinning director Fran BurstTerranella and cast as the pillpopping artist Rosemary Cross in the feature film The 12 Lives of Sissy Carlyle 2017 In between shooting scenes for Sissy Carlyle Cleveland appeared in small roles on the TV shows Drop Dead Diva 2009 and Doktor D 2011 She was then cast in multiple episodes of The Haves and the Have Nots 2013 created and directed by Tyler Perry She has also appeared in the Funny or Die web series The Drunks Ms Cleveland has pursued her career from San Francisco CA Los Angeles CA and Atlanta GA She has authored articles on subjects such as acting and independent filmmaking and moderated served on panels for the Atlanta Film Festival in 2014 2015