At the end of Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda, in the titular role, asks the question, “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” The song asks us to consider who among us become not just the keepers of memory but the shapers of it. Who will take their dreams and fantasies and make them manifest; who will tell the stories, both big and blockbuster, and also amplify the voices too often kept to the side and unsung? Well Noelle McDougle for one is stepping up to the plate.

Noelle is a DC senior with a beautiful trilingual brain, a radiant smile to match and dreams of storytelling. Noelle’s imagination and drive have taken her through a beloved role as lead and assistant director in school plays, and she has roamed the Marvel Universe’s Black Panther’s Wakanda, all of which nourish her own plans and dreams to write and star in films.

In years already overstuffed for too many with such national and personal hardship, Noelle suffered the loss of her father from Covid 19. In her words, “The biggest challenge I’ve had with Covid was completing my senior year. My dad died of Covid right before the end of my junior year, making my senior year very difficult. Thankfully, with a lot of support from my teachers, family and friends, I have been able to graduate and will go on to study to pursue a career in film.”

With Noelle’s determination and passion, in tandem with robust support systems at home and at school, Noelle managed to not just survive but to graduate and to pursue her goals of working in film. “I want to be able to tellstories of people that don’t get heard. I want to be able to use my imagination and bring my fantasies to life. My biggest fantasy is to play the role of my own Marvel character in the Marvel series of movies. It could be a new or existing character in the comics. That’s my dream.”

Well, now we have an answer to “Who tells your story?”It might just be Noelle McDougle.