Julia Riew

is a Korean-American composer-lyricist, librettist, and novelist from St. Louis and NYC. She is best known for her viral hit Dive, which is being developed into a stage musical with Tony-Award winning director Diane Paulus and GLAAD-Award winning playwright Diana Son. Other upcoming projects include her musical ENDLESS (dir. by Zi Alikhan, premiering in Seoul, Korea), her YA fantasy novel The Last Tiger (PRE-ORDER NOW, co-written with brother Brad Riew, publishing with Penguin Random House in July 2025), and her Middle Grade fantasy novel Shimcheong (publishing with HarperCollins summer 2026). In addition to being the 18th Annual Fred Ebb Award winner, Julia has been Playbill’s Featured Songwriter of the Month, a Woman to Watch on Broadway, a Princess Grace Award Honoraria recipient, and the recipient of the Harvardwood Artist Launch Fellowship.

Julia’s work has been performed at the American Repertory Theater, South Coast Repertory, Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater, 54 Below, Greenroom 42, Summerstock Austin Texas, The Coterie in Kansas City, Harvard University’s Farkas Hall and Agassiz Theater, AMAS Musical Theater, The UNC-Greensboro School of Theater, Nora Theater Company at Central Square Theater, Cipriani Wall Street, The Harvard Art Lab, University of Missouri, The Community Music School of Webster University, John Burroughs High School, and many more.

Julia graduated magna cum laude and a member of Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University in May 2022. There, Julia co-founded the Harvard College Asian Student Arts Project (ASAP), a club to provide the resources and community for Asian student artists. She co-wrote their first production, a musical called The East Side and later performed as “Paulette” in ASAP’s all-Asian production of Legally Blonde: The Musical, which received national recognition in fall 2021.