Tessa Lynne Thompson born October 3 1983 is an American actress producer singer and songwriter She began her professional acting career with the Los Angeles Womens Shakespeare Company while studying at Santa Monica College She appeared in productions of The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet the latter of which earned her a NAACP Theatre Award nomination Her breakthrough came with leading roles in Tina Mabrys independent drama film Mississippi Damned 2009 and Tyler Perrys drama film For Colored Girls 2010 Thompson was was raised between Los Angeles and Brooklyn New York Her father singersongwriter Marc Anthony Thompson is of AfroPanamanian descent and is the founder of the musical collective Chocolate Genius Inc Her mother has white and Mexican ancestry She has a younger halfsister Zsela who is a singer and songwriter Thompson attended Santa Monica High School where she played Hermia in a student production of A Midsummer Nights Dream She then attended Santa Monica College SMC where she studied cultural anthropology and is a member of the alma mater While at SMC she also attended lectures by Lisa Wolpe of the Los Angeles Womens Shakespeare Company LAWSC This page is based on a Wikipedia article written by contributors Text is available under the CC BYSA 40 license additional terms may apply
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