Bella Andrade-Schwab is a freshman at Western Washington University. She is studying English and Theatre with career interests in playwrighting, screenwriting, technical theatre, and directing.

Her theatre education so far includes a Young Actors Professional Intensive and two years of the Studio Intensive at Studio East. Her experience in acting has allowed her to realize her love for scripts of varying genres.

Her most educational acting experiences include the shows The Journey, ‘Twas the Night, and The Laramie Project with Studio East. The Journey (2020) was an original musical written by its cast of students. Bella wrote monologues and dialogue for the play, as well as collaborated in a small team through Zoom to write lyrics for the musical numbers. She also contributed short animations for the transitions of the project. This experience allowed Bella to gain experience in playwrighting and songwriting, collaborate creatively, and develop skills in adaptability within the changing technical format of theatre online. ‘Twas the Night (2020) was another experience in musical theatre that allowed Bella to collaborate creatively online. She performed in the cast recording of the music, learning about the process and technology of audio track recording. Bella also participated in a radio play production of The Laramie Project (2021) where she learned how to adapt a play into a new format. Her experiences in theatre so far have allowed her to work closely with scripts, learn about varying technologies used in different forms of theatre, and work adaptively to the constantly changing modes of theatre.

After school, Bella plans to work with local theatre companies as an artistic director or playwright. Bella hopes one day to either work in New York as a playwright or move to Los Angeles to become a staff writer. Along with playwrighting and screenwriting, Bella is interested in cinematography and animated storytelling. She is interested in storyboarding, and she hopes one day to be a showrunner for an animated television show.