Elizabeth McDowell

Elizabeth McDowell began studying and acting in local theater productions in her hometown of Bloomington, Minnesota, at a young age. Daughter of Carlene and Earl McDowell, both theater directors and actors and her mother a teacher of theater and English at Burnsville Senior Highschool, she was surrounded with books on acting and screenplays at a young age. She also began playing the piano at age 5, participating in statewide contests yearly and performing at Northrop Auditorium several times as a winner of these competitions. Her music and interest in film and theater took her to Bologna, Italy, where she began performing with the band Addamanera, and acting in the live radio talk show put on by the record label Trovarobato, "Magazzeno Bis." Luminary members of the indie music elite were guests on the show including Afterhours lead singer Manuel Agnelli, Steve Piccolo of Lounge Lizards, and numerous others. McDowell would perform various parts during the live show, taking on various accents and characters that recurred over the course of the show to a live studio audience. She then began to direct and produce her own short films, which were shown at various film festivals in Italy including the International Festival in Rome and the short film competition at Il Sesto Senso in Bologna. Her most successful short films were "Carmen!" and "La Casa Che Fa Tutto Per Te." She also acted in "Il Tempo di Mia Madre" filmed in Bologna with Marta Cavazza and McDowell playing mother and daughter. In 2022, McDowell released her album "The Sim Is Real" on Pitch and Prose record label, and was featured in PopSugar as one of the top five AAPI artists to watch. She played the lead in a music video directed by Nico Santucci (Sargeto) in which she willingly performed the stunt work of free falling face first into less than 2 feet of water. The video gained over 37,000 views in less than two weeks.