Isabella Dawis is a Filipina-American writer and performer from Minneapolis. Equally active in musical theater, plays, and opera, Isabella works to thread global traditions and feminist perspectives into American theater and music. Currently a 2023-25 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and a 2024 Resident Artist at the Center for Performing Arts in Minneapolis, Isabella is the recipient of the Kleban Prize in Musical Theatre for librettists, the Fred Ebb Award for musical theater songwriting, the Weston-Ghostlight New Musical Award, and the American Opera Project's Composers and the Voice Fellowship. Isabella's work has been presented and supported by the 5th Avenue Theatre, Musical Theatre Factory, Theater Mu, the Kurt Weill Foundation, Berkeley Repertory Theater, the Atlanta Opera, Weston Theater Company, Tofte Lake Center, Ancram Center for the Arts, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, and the O’Neill Center, among others. She has appeared onstage with the Guthrie Theater, the Center for Contemporary Opera, the Minnesota Opera, Theater Mu, the Jungle Theatre, New Ohio Theatre, and many more.

 

Currently, Isabella is performing as an actor and musician in Helen with Ten Thousand Things Theater. Her new musical Sunwatcher (music by Tidtaya Sinutoke) was presented in a public reading in September 2024, supported by the Coalition of Asian American Leaders and a Minnesota State Arts Board Cultural Expression Grant.

 

Isabella recently appeared on the Alex Trebek Stage, as a contestant on Jeopardy!.