ABOUT ME

I'm Isabel Lee Roden (they/them). 

I'm interested in loving the classics, and then lovingly exploding them. I didn't see a fellow Asian American in a Shakespeare play until I was 19 years old. I found myself in Shakespeare's words, but no one else seemed to for such a long time. Since then, I've been lucky enough to see and be a part of work challenging our ideas of whose bodies belong in classical text, and how we can engage with it from our place in the present. I don't want my younger siblings, don't want anyone, ever to question whether poetry or great writing belongs to them.

On-Stage...

Recently I've been seen at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival in Much Ado About Nothing (Margaret), King Lear (Herald, u/s Fool, Regan, Goneril, Oswald), and the theatre for young audiences show Much Ado About Quite A Lot (Beatrice, Dogberry). I've also understudied in The Tempest (Miranda) at Oak Park Festival Theatre.

During my time at the University of Minnesota-Guthrie BFA Program, I've been lucky enough to act in and costume many of our performance projects, including Troilus & Cressida (Ulysses), Stupid F*cking Bird (Mash), Measure for Measure (Isabella), Moscow x6 (Solyony), Antigone (Chorus Leader, u/s Kreon), and Everybody (Cousinship/Mind)

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On the Page...

I am honored to have had my work published in several independent literary magazines, including Overachiever Magazine, Ogma Magazine, Antifragile Magazine, Ice Lolly Review, Mixed Mag, From Pluto Magazine, RUiN Magazine, Chaotic Merge Magazine, Verses Magazine, and The Bitchin' Kitsch.