A beloved friend and artist at her core, Ella Ludwig will become a legend. Whether it’s for her songwriting or a groundbreaking performance on Broadway, her infectious personality will take her far. After all, a truly kind and authentic person like Ella is bound to succeed. 

Songwriter 

It’s easy to call Ella naturally gifted, but in reality, she’san incredibly hard worker and has refined her talents for years. It all started in eighth grade when several of her friends pitched in to buy her a ukulele, giving her a place to channel all her creativity. “It changed my life forever,” she says. “I’ve always written little poems, I’m always singing something, I’m always making up a weird character(…) I had this tool all of a sudden and I loved it. I started writing and writing.”

During quarantine, Ella joined a songwriter circle to hone her skills per the invitation of Carrie Marshal, her voice teacher and mentor. “[She] had said ‘I have this songwriter circle…you should join’ and we met every week for like two years on Zoom. It was a dark time, it was a time of isolation. [But], the creative flourishing that happened at that time was amazing.” For the very first time, through her passion for songwriting, she found a community of people with the same aspirations as her. “They all cheer me on, it’s an amazing community. I’ve never met people who loved to songwrite before.” She still finds inspiration and support from them, “I still keep up with all of them even years later.” 

Not only did she find community, she found her footing in being an artist. The outpour of songwriting in quarantine resulted in her reaching a skill level that gave her a better perspective on her old work. “I went from writing songs and looking back thinking ‘Oh, my songs are so much better now, I wouldn’t play that anymore,’ to writing things that I look back on and still love.” She says she reached a point of contentment in her old art, feeling it represents a different person. ”It’s a time capsule. It’s what I was going through, what I was at that moment. I [can]play a song and snap back [to] that moment.” 

With newfound confidence in her art, Ella began to release music in 2021. Her EP, “Everything That’s Mine”, is a six-song collection written under the name Ella Lorretta. With influences from artists like Phoebe Bridgers, Billie Elish, and Lizzy Mcalpine, the EP has an incredible range. From acoustic confessionals like “Teddy Bear” and “A Boy Loves Me” to a jazzy lead single like “Midnight Calls,” it displayed her versatility as a fresh new artist.

 Three years later, she’s beginning to release music again, fighting her perfectionism and letting her excitement take over. “I hadn’t shared music in a long time. And I missed that, especially like applying to colleges(…)I wanted there to be something that felt like me now to be out.”. Her single “Runnin” is out now, completely produced and written by Ella Ludwig herself. Most recently Ella won first place and a $1000 prize for the Songwriting Round at the Athena Festival in Nashville for her performance of “Midnight Calls.”

Actress 

By her freshman year, Ella was ready to come into her own as an actress and quarantine couldn’t stop her. She kicked off her involvement in Enloe Theatre when she was cast in the remote-movie-musical her freshman year. She reminiscences, “Many of the upperclassmen didn’t audition for the musical. There was an opening there, because [as] the freshmen we were much more engaged because we hadn’t had [an] amazing Enloe Theatre performance [yet]. We were the ones who turned our camera on and had fun. I learned so much. I became so energized about the program here. I’ve done every musical [at Enloe] since then.” When she arrived at Enloe for the full theater experience, in person and now a sophomore, she felt completely at ease. ”I always felt welcome. I learned so much with the phenomenal upperclassmen, I didn’t feel freaked out [Enloe Theatre] is not an environment where people want to put you down.” 

In her junior year, Ella’s life changed when she was cast as Ursula in “The Little Mermaid.” Playing such a dramatic character, she says, allowed her to access new parts of herself. “I was just in the moment having fun. You get to tap into all these emotions, things that are taboo, and [Ursula is] not afraid. There was a freedom in her, a humor, a fearlessness in her that I just loved doing.” With all she’s put into Enloe Theatre, “The Little Mermaid” rewarded her endless hard work. Her memorable performance as Ursula got her a nomination in the DPAC’s Triangle Rising Stars competitions and exposed her work to many new people. Most of all, “The Little Mermaid” strengthened Ella’s dedication to theater: “I look back on that show with gratitude and it reminds me about why I am passionate about doing this.”

Ella Behind the Scenes 

In her personal life, Ella is a self-described fan of purple, Uggs, Panera Bread, and people. You could probably find her reading novels like Normal People and Love and Other Words while listening to the band, Cigarettes After Sex. 

Ella’s friends describe her as genuine, unapologetic, kind, and thoughtful. Long-time friend Kate Minter says,“[She is] one of the most passionate, hard-working people that I’ve ever met”. She continues, “She genuinely every day, even if she just saw you yesterday, she’ll say ‘How are you doing?’ You get the sense she cares, she wants to know how you’re doing.” The strongest testament to her character has to be Zoe Goldstein’s glowing review, “[Ella is] the truest, most empathetic person… I’m a better person around her…she makes me laugh more than anyone else…The world is more beautiful and brighter with her in it.” She finishes, “I’ve met a lot of talented people before but not anyone with the same combination of grace, kindness, empathy, and talent that she has. She’s going to go far, I know that.”

When I asked Kate about her predictions for Ella’s future, without skipping a beat, she answered, “She’ll definitely be famous, whatever she does.” We at the Eagle’s Eye are so ecstatic to see how Ella Ludwig will take on the world, surely her time at Enloe is just the beginning.