Jessica Marie Chasengnou, born March 23, 1984 - better known by her stage name Jessica Cha is a comedian, musician, photographer, artist, author and graphic designer. She is best known for her sketch comedy parodies with the Team Versus Sketch Comedy Troupe. Her biggest influences and icons include: Bruce & Brandon Lee (RIP), Angelina Jolie, Russell Brand, Mitch Hedberg (RIP), Marilyn Manson, Janice Dickinson, Jae Hee, Sarah Hyland, Ethan Ruan, Seth Green, Sarah Silverman, Christopher Walken, Adrianne Curry, Stephen Colbert, Macaulay Caulkin, Bobby Lee, Tyra Banks, Will Ferrell, Gene Simmons, John C. Reilly, Peter Serafinowicz, Jet Li, John Cleese, Criss Angel and Eric Idle
==Early life==
Jessica Cha was raised in Saint Albans, West Virginia. Cha's passions included music, photography, animal rights, cheerleading, and of course, comedy. Jessica Cha was primarily raised by her grandparents, Deloris Jean Price and Frank Edward Price. Her mother, Pamela Jean Price, was a teenage mother and her father remained unnamed until Cha was sixteen. Jessica Cha has one brother - Christopher, and one sister - Ashley.
Raised in an environment of domestic abuse, Cha learned quickly the value of laughter after calling into her local radio station and befriending DJ Shawn "Hollywood" Martin after shadowing him for a school project. On January 21, 2000 when Cha's grandmother passed away, she moved in with her mother for a year, and shortly thereafter relocated to Wilmington, North Carolina to live with an aunt and uncle while she finished her senior year of high school.
Cha admits the move was "refreshing, because I got to re-create who I was, and nobody would ever know who I was before and what kind of life I came from."
After graduating high school, Cha enlisted in the United States Navy as a Master-at-Arms, better known as military police. During her service, she traveled from Chicago, Illinois to Virginia Beach, Virginia - where she was stationed for her entire four years of service, with the only exception being a specially selected security detail for New York City Fleet Week 2003. After returning from Fleet Week in NYC, Cha met her future husband, Jonathan Chasengnou, who is still in the service. Cha has no children and currently resides in Southern California.
==Entertainment Career==
During her service, Cha disagreed with the lackadaisical security procedures, and began creating comic strip style comics and distributing them amongst her peers to raise morale. Shortly thereafter, Jessica Cha made her debut at the Virginia Beach Funnybone Comedy Club and Restaurant on March 23, 2006 opening for comedians Jason Dixon and Melanie Malloy.
Immediately after her debut onstage, Cha began forming a sketch comedy troupe, known as Team Versus with friend and fellow veteran Shawna Ashlock. They marketed their comedy as "street comedy" making them unique from other sketch troupes.
As Jessica Marie Price, her photograph, "The Effects of Cold Rain" was published in a book called Endless Journeys and received the Editor's Choice Award from The International Library of Photography. Cha has also had photographs published on The International Library of Photography's website under her married name, Jessica Marie Chasengnou. After being published, Cha worked as a photographer for a subsidiary studio of Hallmark, Inc. briefly, before quitting her job and moving to Ridgecrest, California.
Jessica Cha is also known for creating and mixing musical melodies. She started doing this as one half of a duo called The Black Hanky Girls. Once Cha realized she was more dedicated to the project than her colleague, she decided to part ways, breaking off independently to pursue her dreams of becoming famous.
In June 2008 Jessica Cha and Amanda Go created GoCha Productions, in order to pitch a television drama script to South Korean television station, KBS. The project has been put off for two years until Korean actor Jae Hee has been released from military service, whereas the two (Jessica Cha & Amanda Go) already have Jae Hee in their sights as one of the main characters in this series.
Currently, Jessica Cha resides in Ridgecrest, California with her husband and travels often between Seattle, Las Vegas, Sacramento and Los Angeles.
==Personal Life==
Jessica Cha is admittedly a "cheerleader-turn-geek". She is an avid video game player, her favorite being a virtual world called Secondlife, where she is better known as Jaclyn Iredell; a Secondlife Celebrity. She also enjoys playing Mass Effects and Oblivion in her free time.
Cha enjoys science fiction novels, her favorite being "Ringworld" by Larry Niven. Although, she claims her favorite author is Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, who wrote Hotel Transylvania, launching the Saint Germain series.
Jessica Cha's self description - "I'm like a well-cut diamond. We all are. Depending which way the light catches us, that is the facet of our personality that is being seen. But I have many facets that are there, and maybe you can partially see them through the facet you're looking through, but you will never know the full me. Heck, I don't even know the full me." < less
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