Janeva Villatoro Zentz  is a
writer, comedian, producer, and filmmaker.
She wears many hats and coincidentally once
apprenticed with a hatmaker.

Janeva’s passion for creating witty, charming, and thought-provoking entertainment can be traced to the 2nd Grade at Our Lady of Peace, an elementary school located deep in the San Fernando Valley. A gifted illustrator, Janeva drew a highly realistic and beautiful portrait while her classmate Richard lazily drew an animated character. On this fateful day, all the students applauded Richard’s cartoon over Janeva’s work of art. While her ego was burned, a seed was planted: humor speaks to the masses.

Earning a full-tuition scholarship, Janeva studied Fine Art at the prestigious Cooper Union in NYC where she created many more boring masterpieces and graduated with honors. Then, curveball, she was serendipitously cast as the star of the feature film “La Voz de los Silenciados”. This project was a turning point.

But it wasn’t till she was pushing 30, after lots of therapy, globe-trotting, and the stability of a loving partnership that Janeva finally felt capable of trying comedy for herself. She dove into improv, which was a gateway drug to stand-up!

Inspired by her identity crisis as a first-gen Latina, Janeva wrote the comedy pilot “Más Latina” which she also produced, co-directed, and starred in. Through a killer festival run, she found producing partners to pitch an updated version of the series, and she is developing a slate of other projects. Her work centers on womxn, embraces poetic absurdity, celebrates the underdog, and flips stereotypes.

In 2022, Janeva reconnected with stand-up and launched an ongoing show, First Dibs Comedy, which she produces and often hosts. The show takes place in Lake Arrowhead, CA, where she lives milking sheep and building sheds. Well, the comedy part is true.