ON A STRING World Premiere!

And I'm coming to LA!

Hello! I’m overjoyed that I can finally announce publicly that ON A STRING, my feature film debut that I wrote, directed, produced, and starred in will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival in June as part of the festival’s U.S. Narrative Competition! If this is the first you’re hearing about ON A STRING, here’s a brief synopsis:

A Juilliard-trained violist navigates the New York City freelance classical musician scene, playing gigs that often draw her into the personal lives of strangers, all while living in her oddball family’s NYC apartment.

Here’s the Deadline article that came out about it in 2024 after we’d wrapped principal photography.

It’s an 80 minute dramedy, and if you enjoyed my web series IS A VIOLIST, I think you’ll love ON A STRING. You can get tickets to all four screenings of the film at the Tribeca Festival here!

I finished the first draft of the script in December of 2021 and have been working nonstop on making the film ever since. It’s been years of work with lots of rejection, lots of rewrites, LOTS of fundraising, lots of meeting collaborators who were wild enough to take this ride with me and who have now become some of my closest friends, lots of crying on my couch, a whirlwind three week production, months and months of post production, lots of laughs, and lots of paperwork… I’m so good at paperwork now…

Bringing this film to life has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my career (except for when I had to learn Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Sonata for Solo Viola — would not recommend!!!) but even when it was hard, I didn’t want to quit (due partly to masochistic tendencies). To be very corny for a minute, making this movie ultimately just made my heart sing (and provided quite an effective distraction from my internal demons), and I’m really grateful that I had the opportunity and the support to make it.

ALSO…

You might already know that I’m gearing up to tape my first hour long comedy special on May 23rd at 7pm in NYC at The Bitter End! (Tickets at that link or at isabelhagen.com — use promo code SEVEN for $7 tickets — or pay the full $20 if you’d like since 100% of sales go directly to me and I’m producing the special completely independently.)

“But I don’t live in NYC :(“

Okay, but do you live in LA? Because I’m running the special there to prepare for the taping! One night only, May 7th, 9:30pm at the Lyric Hyperion. Tickets here!

“I don’t live in LA either :(”

Okay, but do you live in Philadelphia? I’m doing shows there at The Punchline on April 25 and 26! Tickets here!

“I don’t live in Philly either :(“

Okay, but do you live in Point Pleasant Beach NJ, or Dallas TX? I’m doing shows in those places soon too! All tickets at isabelhagen.com

"I don’t live in any of the places you mentioned :(“

Fill out this form and tell me where to go! If enough people name a place, I’ll do my best to make a show happen there!

Thank you as always for opening this email, and for bearing with these more news-y newsletters rather than my more typical essay style newsletters. Those will return, rest assured.

Love,

Isabel