ISABELLA DAWIS is a playwright and performer based in NYC and Minneapolis. Trained as a classical musician, she collaborates with artists of all disciplines to create genre-crossing new works.
Isabella is bookwriter/lyricist for the musical HALF THE SKY, the story of an Asian American woman climbing Mount Everest -- for which she and composer Tidtaya Sinutoke won the 2020 Weston-Ghostlight New Musical Award. They are currently at work on an upcoming adaptation of HALF THE SKY as an episodic audio musical, produced by the 5th Avenue Theatre for release in early 2021.
HALF THE SKY is an inaugural First Draft commission by the 5th, with further development at Theater Mu's New Eyes Festival, Theater Latté Da's NEXT Festival, the O'Neill Center, and the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat. Isabella's chamber musical with Tidtaya Sinutoke, SUNWATCHER, the true story of Japanese female astronomer Hisako Koyama, is being developed in the 2020-21 Civilians' R&D Group and was recently featured in the Weston Playhouse's Songs for Today series. Isabella recently collaborated with Emily Gardner Xu Hall on the 24 Hour Plays: Viral Musicals.
As a playwright and librettist, Isabella's work has been supported by Musical Theatre Factory, the Kurt Weill Foundation, New York Theatre Barn, the Bushwick Starr, Broadway Buskers, Town Stages, Central Square Theater, the Skeleton Rep, New England Conservatory, and the Schubert Club. She was a 2019-2010 Rockwell Scholar at the Primary Stages Einhorn School of Performing Arts.
Isabella recently starred opposite her sister Francesca as twins L and M in Jiehae Park's PEERLESS at Theater Mu. Other recent credits include THE MAGIC FLUTE (Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra), the Byzantine Choral Project's ICONS/IDOLS (54 Below), Erik Ehn's DEMAFELIS (Planet Connections), VOID (The Tank), Project Y's Women in Theatre Festival, SWEAT (Center for Contemporary Opera), and the New York Philharmonic Biennial (featured soloist). Originally from Minneapolis, Isabella grew up acting onstage with companies including Theater Mu, the Minnesota Opera, the Children's Theatre Company, the Guthrie Theater, and Chanhassen Dinner Theatres.
B.M. summa cum laude and highest distinction in piano performance, University of Minnesota; Classical Voice Diploma Program, New England Conservatory.
Plays
Aurelie sets out to fulfill her childhood dream of summiting Mount Everest, together with a group of hopeful mountaineers from around the world, led by a precocious teenage Sherpa. As she grapples with the grueling demands of the mountain, Aurelie finds she must also confront her Thai American family’s past, and the rift which separates her from her younger sister. Borders between countries and cultures, past and present, and waking and dreaming begin to blur.
A story about bridging impossible chasms in the hope of repairing broken relationships and restoring love.
SUNWATCHER, a Noh-inspired musical, tells the real-life story of Japanese female astronomer and WWII survivor Hisako Koyama -- a self-taught solar observer who painstakingly sketched the sun's image every day for 40 years. Though scientists rank her among the likes of Galileo, Hisako remains a “hidden figure.” SUNWATCHER adapts the meditative conventions of Noh drama into a one-act chamber musical, intertwining Hisako’s story with the Japanese myth of the sun goddess Amaterasu.
Successes
The 5th Avenue Theatre has announced that Half the Sky, a new contemporary American musical with music by Tidtaya Sinutoke and book and lyrics by Isabella Dawis, will be the first of three Musical Radio Plays produced in its 2020/21 digital season. https://www.broadwayworld.com/seattle/article/New-Musical-HALF-THE-SKY-T...
2/11/20: Tidtaya Sinutoke (music) and Isabella Dawis (book & lyrics) have won the Weston-Ghostlight New Musical Award for their new musical HALF THE SKY. https://www.broadwayworld.com/vermont/article/Weston-Playhouse-Announces...