I experiment with many different kinds of storytelling.

From screen to stage to poetry to music…

Here is some of my work, all still growing as I am

and as art endlessly does.

“ Art Creates a profound connection between the artist and the audience. Through that connection, both can heal” - Rick Rubin

Playbill for 'The Nowhere Women' by Bella Panico, featuring a framed and ornate border with a pink silhouette of a woman’s face with a question mark inside it, set against a purple floral background.

The Nowhere Women

A spoken word manifesto answering the question: What is feminism? It explores the history of the movement, American Politics, gender socialization, community, and the raw truth of its sustained importance. It exposes tough conversations most often repressed and censored in artistic as well as every day social society.

Premiered in a full NYC performance at Marymount Manhattan College in March 2025. It also won the 2025 Women Working with Women Student Collaboration Award with Women in the Arts and Media Coalition.

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Book cover titled "The Great Tale of Beatrice Marie Brown" with a background of handwritten text, a large chef's knife, a pen, a lighter, and images of a woman with a tattoo.

The Great Tale of Beatrice Marie Brown

This performance piece follows Beatrice Brown, a young girl trapped in her bedroom with her darkest and most critical self. Through music and language, it dives into the fragmented and chaotic nature of mental illness and explores how we as humans continue alongside our past. It dives into heavy topics like addiction, self harm, abuse, and depression by promising hope and the bright future uncommonly portrayed.

Premiered with a reading at Marymount Manhattan College in April 2025 with a reading coming up on April 10th 2026 at Dear Friend Books in Brooklyn.

Poster illustration showing a woman with green skin and green hair standing inside a teal elevator. The text at the top reads 'The Elevator' and at the bottom 'Bella Panico'. 
Cover art by Carolina Manent

The Elevator

Four people are trapped in an elevator for hours…what could go wrong? This short satirical comedy follows Owen, Sofia, Karen White, and Jason White as hours trapped in a very small space makes it impossible to hide from each other…and from themselves. Owen is trying to take Sofia on a date, and poor Karen just wants to move her child into their apartment when…the elevator drops and suddenly they are stuck with no way out and no one seems to be coming.

Owen is your stereotypical New York City Finance Bro…he’s probably got some fancy stationary and mansplains all day and night, right? Sofia is his partner, a real estate agent whose confidence is masking something festering deep inside her. Karen White is Jason’s overbearing mother who definitely needs therapy. Jason is a quiet young adult simply trying to discover who they are…beyond their suffocating family.

Chaos ensues.

Premiered at the Flea Theater in New York City, April 2024 with Unlimited Stages.

An abstract, colorful painting of four faces with intertwined white lines resembling roots, titled 'This Life' by Bella Panico. 
Painting by Anna Walencik

This Life

This Screenplay follows Charlie, a reserved person in their 30s who is privately depressed. With their life feeling like it has become mundane and meaningless dreading a 9-5 cubical job, they struggle finding joy in anything. Suddenly, a near death experience on a hike transports them into a divine consciousness where they live a day in the lives of three distinctly different people.

This piece explores what it means to be alive, find joy in simplicity, connect to people and the world around us, and live this life…in the present moment.

The screenplay was workshopped with a workshop cast and team from May-August 2024 in Northern NJ.

Poetry

May Flowers Poetry Anthology

In May 2023 my poem “Spring and Summer” was published in a poetry anthology with The Poetry Society of NJ!

This collection focuses on themes of Faith, Love, Self, Society, and fitting in in four sections:

“Of Faith and Inspiration”
“Inside of Me”
“Of Love and Dedication”
“My World” - Spring and Summer is featured

This is poetry with passion, poetry with truth, poetry that comes from faith and morality, love and admiration, pain & heartache, and questions without answers that one can only ask oneself in the darkness of the early morning hours.

Cover for the May Flowers 2023 Poetry Anthology by the Live Poet's Society of NJ, featuring a garden with red, yellow, and pink flowers and green foliage in the background.

Flowers for a Doll

Inspired by a poem I wrote when I was thirteen, Flowers for a Doll is a journey of mourning, healing, discovery, and ultimately growth in three sections:

“Flowers for a Doll”

“Monochrome”

“Spring”

My poem “Spring and Summer” will be featured in the “Spring” section of this book, as well as read with other excerpts from this collection at the Poetry in the Park event listed below.

The collection is set to be published in the near future! Check back here and on social media platforms linked below for updates.