From a young age, Jonah Halperin loved building and creating. It came out in basement projects: model rockets, pinewood derby cars, a homemade zipline. And it was what led him to his major at Yale, in mechanical engineering, and his plans to go into aerospace engineering after graduation.
His creative drive also propelled him to an earlier career — as a Broadway actor.
At four, Halperin started in his local theater and at five took part in a showcase for young actors in New York City. (He told jokes: “What do you call a penguin in the desert? Lost!”) He went on to play roles in the original cast of “Kinky Boots” (which won a Tony in its debut year) and “Doctor Zhivago,” and in the Broadway production of “Matilda.”
Acting required commitment — months away from school for rehearsals, and then traveling from his hometown of Chappaqua, about 30 miles from New York City, to Manhattan for eight performances a week. Yet Halperin still found time to tinker, and by the time he reached high school his focus turned from the stage to the workshop.
Halperin performing in Doctor Zhivago on Broadway, with Jamie Jackson, March, 2015.
“For me, it’s the same creative process as acting — considering how to bring a story to life and bringing an idea to life,” he said. “It’s the common thread between acting and making something physical for the world.”
By the time Halperin was applying to college, he knew he wanted to work in aerospace. What drew him to Yale, he said, was the chance to be his full self — both engineer and artist. “At Yale, I was able to grow across all fronts,” he said. “I could learn engineering, but also history, acting, film, theater.”
Engineering coursework filled his schedule, but he also took classes in experimental archaeology, film theory — and musical theater lyric writing with Michael Korie, a lecturer in theater, dance, and performance studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (and in playwriting in the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale) and the lyricist from “Doctor Zhivago.”
“When I applied to the class, I tried not to explicitly say, ‘Hi, I worked with you on Broadway, please let me in,’” Halperin said. “But he did say, ‘Hi, Jonah – I remember you.’ And it was a lovely class.”
Outside of classes, he joined the Yale Undergraduate Aerospace Association, eventually becoming its co-president; the Yale Ski Team; joined a rock band with some friends; and made a short film that won best documentary in the Ezra Stiles Film Festival.
He also helped lead Yale Project Liquid, a student club that aimed to be the first on campus to make a liquid rocket engine — which requires a more volatile combination of a fuel and an oxidizer — and the first Ivy League program to launch a liquid powered rocket. The first part of the challenge, Halperin said, was working with the administration on a safety plan to allow undergraduates to undertake this type of combustion research.
“One of my main accomplishments has been working with the engineering administration, environmental health and safety, and countless other departments to champion the idea that Yale students can approach complex engineering problems with professionalism and safely,” Halperin said.
That work also opened the way for his senior capstone — building a pulse jet engine, which he did with four other mechanical engineering majors, and firing it nearly 100 times over the past few months. “The fact that this simply wouldn’t have been possible four years ago, and by my senior year was happening multiple times a week, feels like a rewarding, full-circle moment,” he said.
Pulsejet Senior Capstone group members (from left to right, Jack Griffin; Cayden Cerveny; Casimir Hixon; Aaron Cope; Jonah Halperin) and Nick Bernardo, the Yale SEAS shop machinist (third from left).
After graduation, Halperin plans to move to Los Angeles, where he’ll be taking a job at Mach Industries, an aerospace company. He also hopes to take advantage of his proximity to Hollywood to stay connected to the performing arts and filmmaking.
At commencement, he plans to wear his Tony Award ring — a commemorative piece commissioned by the Kinky Boots cast after their win — as he receives his diploma. “It symbolizes where I came from and where I’m going,” he said.
And he hopes future Yale students can follow the same advice he was given when he first arrived in New Haven. “Really make sure that you’re able to step back during these four years and appreciate the friends, appreciate where you are,” he said. “And just go on every side quest.”
