Isabella Dawis is a Filipina-American writer and performer from Minneapolis working in storytelling, musical, and theatrical mediums. Her writing for musical theater "pulls together the most intimate and epic human impulses into story and song" (Musical Theatre Factory) and is described as "magical... where theater is going" by the Kleban Foundation. She is the founder of Twin Cities arts company Sansrival, recently awarded by the Asian Economic Development Association, which helps Minnesotan artists reach audiences outside traditional venues.

A 2026 Artist-in-Residence at Loghaven and Lanesboro Arts, Isabella is the recipient of the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, the Coalition of Asian American Leaders Ignite Fund, the Kleban Prize in Musical Theatre for librettists, the Fred Ebb Award for songwriting, and more. Her musicals and operas include SUNWATCHER, about Japanese female astronomer and "hidden figure" Hisako Koyama (National Alliance for Musical Theater Festival, upcoming); HALF THE SKY, about an Asian American woman climbing Everest (Weston-Ghostlight New Musical Award); and BEFORE THE LAST METER, dramatizing both disability advocacy and community displacement during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and Paralympics (Atlanta Opera 96 Hour Project). She was a contributing writer on the musical BREATHE, about Filipino healthcare workers in the US during the COVID pandemic (54 Below in concert). Her play BONES OF A HORSE, commissioned by Theater Mu, examines Minnesota's Camp Savage and the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.

Isabella's work has been presented and supported by the 5th Avenue Theatre, Musical Theatre Factory, Ten Thousand Things, 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, the O’Neill Center, the Center for Performing Arts in Minneapolis, Theater Latte Da, Goodspeed Musicals, the Civilians, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 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.

B.M. summa cum laude, Piano Performance, University of Minnesota
U.D. Classical Voice, New England Conservatory of Music

Isabella often collaborates with her sister, singer/actor/violinist Francesca Dawis.