Arts Vanity: Artist Profile: Isabelle A. Lu ’26 is Also Single — Single-Minded in Her Plan to Ruin the Arts Section

When I meet Isabelle A. Lu ’26 in Harvard Law School’s Caspersen Student Center for our interview, she is wearing a black top, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the one she borrowed from me a month ago and still hasn’t returned. Lu has chosen to pair this offending top with simple silver hoops, though her usual earring range spans from creepy baby dolls to miniature copies of Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

Lu and I are the outgoing Theater Executives at The Harvard Crimson. As such, we have spent a decent chunk of time this academic year in pitch meetings and production nights, and even more outside of it unnecessarily treating ourselves with coffee and sending each other dumb posts from Twitter (currently X). In a text, Lu estimated that she has become “65% more theater kid” this year, a concerning statistic for someone who, as a child, starred as Sleeping Beauty in Rockville Centre’s local musical theater program and forgot all her lines.

Lu, who has an Aries sun, Gemini moon and Leo rising, felt that her March birth date is not representative of who she is as a person, which is someone who believes in astrology.

“I prefer to go with the ‘Harry Potter’ system, where I’m a Ravenclaw sun, Hufflepuff moon, Ravenclaw rising,” she said, to which this writer nodded neutrally and tried not to show her glee at having this kind of fodder on the record for this profile.

Lu also identified as a tenth-wave feminist — “I’m really ahead of the curve,” she said — and hated reading Mary Wollstonecraft's “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” in Humanities 10a. She went on quite a tangent about this book and Wollstonecraft’s repetitive arguments, which had moved her enough that she mentioned her loathing of it in her shoot paper when she applied to be an Arts Executive in 2023. For more insight into the level of nerd Lu is, she designed the tote bag for Hum 10 and unironically suggested visiting Dublin for Bloomsday — which, for those who have social lives, is the day that all the events in James Joyce’s “Ulysses” take place.

When writing this profile, this writer was told that she could “tell [the readers] embarrassing things but nothing that compromises my integrity,” which is the kind of savvy forward thinking that will serve Lu well as the incoming Arts Co-Chair, alongside Thomas A. Ferro ’26.

Another trait that will serve her well is being unafraid of confrontation, such as saying that her least favorite thing about her future Co-Chair, Ferro, is that he uses Apple Calendar, which disrupts Lu’s workflow as a Google Suite user.

“I’m shocked and appalled by Isabelle’s words,” Ferro said when asked for comment. “Who is she kidding? We all know that she uses Apple Music.”

It’s true. When asked about her Spotify Wrapped, Lu showed me instead her Apple Music statistics on a UX designer’s nightmare of a summary page, which boasts the likes of Sufjan Stevens, Clairo, and boygenius. In other words, business is as usual for Isabelle A. Lu, who personifies sad girl indie more than any sad indie girl this writer has ever met.

But her top song was the 1994 indie-rock hit “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” by Jeff Buckley, a song that she listened to over 30 times.

“This mostly happened in one week,” Lu emphasized concerningly — the week when she was home over break.

When asked how she plans to fail as Arts Chair, Lu shared her vision to either convert the entire section to theatrical coverage, or to scrap traditional reporting altogether and transition to a “Joe Rogan-type podcast.”

“Everything just switches to audio format, and we’ll have all of the compers just, like, talk about their takes on women,” said Lu.

But it is hard to spend two entire semesters and a good proportion of FaceTime over the summer with someone without feeling attached to said person, and Lu, who identifies as an Elphaba sun, Brat moon, and Shrek rising, has rapidly become one of my favorite people. As two incredibly online individuals, Lu and I have dissected Broadway castings and followed the “Wicked” press tour with zeal, and have also spent enough time whispering in important meetings that a fellow Crimson Arts editor once asked if we were dating.

“We are both delusional and looking for romance, but that does not mean that we are looking for romance with each other,” Lu said in a statement to The Crimson, which this writer wholeheartedly agrees with.

When asked what she learned this year, Lu said, “I’ve learned that you can start out awkward with people, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re incompatible. Like, you could have a really weird, awkward first week hang out, but then you become really close later.”

“So, like, don’t judge a book by its first chapter,” I said, to which she responded, “Okay, well, that’s not as deep, but whatever.” An eye roll could be detected in Lu’s voice.

Perhaps Lu learned this vital piece of wisdom from our official first meeting at the Smith Campus Center last December, when we sat down for what would be the first of many matchas. I apparently listed musicals that “were not [her] favorites, but whatever,” while I felt threatened at the disturbing amount of similarities that we shared.

But Lu’s various idiosyncrasies — such as having once asked this writer to “bring Doritos in a secret bag so the other execs don’t get any” and her penchant for making slides about the most random things — have grown on this writer, who could not have imagined doing this job without Lu.

Ultimately, the reasons why Lu has been an excellent Theater Co-Executive are the same reasons that she is an excellent friend. Lu loves having one-on-one conversations, a fact that is a symptom of her introversion, but also is a sign of her desire to get to truly know people.

“I hope that every single Crimson Arts writer feels like they can approach me to talk about anything and to ask for any advice,” Lu said when asked for her hopes for the future Arts Board.

Let it be on the record that this writer is excited for Lu’s reign of terror as Arts Chair to begin, even as she got straight to the point when asked about the imminent departure of Angelina X. Ng ’26, who is going abroad next semester.

“Thank GOD,” she exclaimed. “Or let me say it better. Thank Gyat.”

That’s cool, Isabelle. Please give me my top back.

—Outgoing Theater Executive Angelina X. Ng is happy to receive any hate mail about Isabelle A. Lu at angelina.ng@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @angelinaxng.