My name is Isabella (Izzy) Ignacio and I’m a writer, dancer, singer and student. I’ve spent the past three years participating and acting in musicals and plays – all because of a script I decided to write when I was 12 years old. I have told many stories before, but never mine.
I had plans to go to college and become a teacher, but that was never my dream. It was always my dream to be involved with a play on Broadway, not the star or even as part of an ensemble, but to write a script so beautiful, so engaging that it landed on Broadway.
Ever since I was in first grade, I’ve written stories, novels, and even scripts. Not necessarily the best quality novels, but to me they had meaning. As I continued to grow up, so did my writing. My little stories about twin witches in a fantasy world became a script about twins in the 1960s navigating a new world of cultural revolution. Somehow the one script I wrote about the new world in the 1960s and 1970s started an entire fascination for me with the era. It was an era of change and acceptance, both of which I believe are still needed today. The past became prevalent to understanding the present, and my passion for the era led to me falling in love with the fashion, the slang, and even the little eccentricities of the era.
Music has always been a part of my life. I learned to play the piano at six years old and my entire family practically worshipped music. It was fitting then that ever so slowly my script became a musical. As I dove into the journey of understanding my script, I joined a musical theatre company to understand more about musicals. It was there I learned I couldn’t dance, so of course I joined a dance company. I lived the life of my characters, I felt their emotions and I revised my script, over and over again.
As of today, I’m currently on Act 2; Scene 7, on my third draft of The Zodiac Journal. In the course of the three years, I’ve been working on Zodiac, I’ve written one play and another short musical, both of which don’t mean nearly as much to me as Zodiac. So when I was asked to write an article introducing myself, I realized that a substantial amount of who I am is my writing, yet I also realized that I might not have gotten myself into theatre just for the script. I believe there was a part of me, when I started that first draft of The Zodiac Journal , that knew I wanted to dance, and I wanted to sing. A part of me craved the idea of creating music and a story, one that I desperately want to live.
