Isabel Lee Roden
actor / writer / musician
Hi! I’m Isabel (they/them).
Proud Filipino-Chinese, Genderqueer Actor and Creative.
Represented by Paonessa Talent Agency.
Currently Chicago-Based, available as a local hire in NYC, LA, D.C., and more.
Classically trained with a rebellious streak, I aim to bring creativity, drive, and compassion to every room.
I love poetic language, plays with music, horror, period pieces, and magical realism.
Find me onstage and screen as the brainy badass or the ingenue with an edge, often with a stringed instrument on hand.
What's new?
What's new?
What's new?
What's new? What's new? What's new?
Summer 2026
Text coaching for Door Shakespeare’s 2026 Summer season, Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Importance of Being Earnest.
Playing Bonnie in JunkHeart Theatre and Metal Shop Performance Lab’s production of Anatomy of a Suicide.
My original play, How We Get Where We’re Going [a play about zombies], will be featured in Essential Invisible Theatre Company and Fox & Spade Ensemble’s new works festival, Cracks in the Pavement.
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DC Theater Arts:
“Roden’s physical impulsiveness, coupled with the way [they] just burst out with Juliet’s lines, convinces you that [they’ve] never had these thoughts, let alone spoken them, ever before.”
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DC Theater Arts:
“As Speed, […] Isabel Lee Roden has a similar reversal of character; no sooner do we see them as the modest Juliet one night, than we see them as outspoken, and fully capable of making us laugh ourselves silly, here in Two Gents.”
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Buzz Center Stage:
“Roden’s vivacity and marvelous comedic bearing were exceptional - this was their debut with PrideArts and they’re definitely a keeper!”
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Chicago Theatre Review:
“[They] make Shakespeare’s text crystal clear, something which is helpful to the 21st century theatergoer’s ear.”
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Windy City Times:
“Isabel Lee Roden brings both comic energy and unabashed fury to the Nurse.”
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Chicago Theatre Review:
“Isabel is terrific at mastering both the verse and the vocabulary.”
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Dr. Peter Kirwan:
“Roden put in their best work yet at the ASC with a protean, delightful performance characterized by side-eye and a slow smile […] Roden’s poise and control combined with Seiler’s effusiveness and wasted energy made this one of the most fun comic tensions within the play.”
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The Pantagraph:
“Viola (an ingenious Isabel Lee Roden) washes up on shore in mid-1950s coastal Italy […] Viola falls head over heels for Orsino. […] You literally see them fall in love and it’s electric.”