Johnson and Nguyen
Johnson and Nguyen started working together in the middle of their sophomore year of high school after being inspired to write this musical together. Childhood friends, the two reconnected their freshman year and combined their songwriting skills, love of storytelling, and passion for musical theatre to become the iconic duo they are today.
They have both won several awards for personal written works, and they won NAMT and the NEA's National Musical Theatre Songwriting Challenge for High School Students (2024) together for the opening song of Less Than Perfect "Live Before Life's Gone." Recognized nationally, the duo spent a weekend in NYC getting the song work-shopped, performed professionally Off-Broadway, and published by Concord Theatricals.
Johnson and Nguyen plan on continuing to write together, both having a passion for telling stories they have yet to see in today's media. The duo hope their work can be one step in the right direction towards normalizing common discussion and inclusion many minorities and isolated communities as everyone deserves to have their story told. They have many other ideas in the works and hope Less Than Perfect is just the beginning of their writing career.
Maya Johnson
Maya has been playing instruments and telling stories from a young age, began theatre in high school, and is now a performer and writer about to head to college for Musical Theatre. Maya has always been incredibly passionate about the capacity for emotional expression and impact that the arts possess and appreciates the opportunity to spread messages that people need to hear. Maya is a Young Playwright's Showcase winner and enjoys writing of all sorts of genres including poetry, plays, contemporary music, and musical theatre. They can't wait to share this process and project with you that has become such an important part of both writers' lives!
Isabella Nguyen
Isabella has been creating and making up stories since she could talk. She was performing in musicals since she was eight, and now she's headed to get her BFA in Musical Theatre. The arts have always been her home, and she can't imagine doing anything else with her life. From performing to writing, Isabella uses the arts as a creative outlet with which to share people's stories and experiences and work to foster unity in our divided world. Isabella loves to write poems, plays, songs, and short stories along with the musicals she is working on. She is so excited to finally start sharing these stories with you, and she hopes you enjoy them just as much as she does!