"A chameleon-like quality and versatile vocals that make her so compelling to watch..."
Press
Bitter Melon
"The cast is sharp down to the various small parts, with some generous writing for particular talents. There’s an especially fine scene in which Rivera’s 10-years-sober Moe reunites with Lisa (Anna Ishida, the lead in Mendoza’s supernatural objet d’art “I Am a Ghost”), who’s still stuck being “one of the boys” in a nonstop party scene she’s resigned to never leave."
- Dennis Harvey, Variety
I Am a Ghost
"A TOUR-DE-FORCE PERFORMANCE"
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- Chris Hallock, All Things Horror
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"Anna Ishida, an actress whose prodigious talent and emotional capacity carry the film forward and enable Mendoza's whole enterprise.."
- Jonathan Newman, Philadelphia Examiner
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"SMART, ORIGINAL AND UNSETTLING! Anna Ishida [gives] an extraordinary performance."
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​"GRADE: A
Smart, original, and unsettling. Highly recommended for fans of ambitious horror films."
This Much I Know
"Costello’s cast is superlative. Ishida can speak disgust directly from the viscera, and she subtly reveals how Natalya has had to build a wall of inward rage out of constantly being misunderstood and overlooked."
- Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle
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"Happily, all three actors are enormously talented and pull off the subtleties of their multiple roles with great aplomb. Instantly, in full view of the audience, the actors morph into new characters using only their body movements, accents, and a few props to signal the change...And Anna Ishida is equally convincing as Svetlana and Natalya."
- Emily S. Mendel, Berkeleyside
The Importance of Being Earnest
"...the finest performers in Josh Costello’s cast — Anna Ishida and Patrick Kelly Jones as lovers Gwendolen and Algernon; Sharon Lockwood the imperious Lady Bracknell — add still further pleasure to the avalanche of wit. They make it sing...They distend syllables. They ride the waves of diphthongs. They scale octaves in a breath and then find a comedic thump of a note to land on. It’s pitch as punch line. This is what training and craft and mastery look like, and it feels like a luxury to see them on clear and lavish display in a world so often skeptical of expertise."
- Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle
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"Anna Ishida is a delightfully refined and self-assured Gwendolen..."
-Sam Hurwitt, The Mercury News
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Water by the Spoonful
"TheatreWorks has put together an exceptionally strong ensemble with powerful performances coming from the always impressive Anna Ishida..."
- George Heymont, My Cultural Landscape
"Gifted comic Ishida and the marvelous Haney team up in the most delightful duo of the play, giving us memorable, unassuming humor and sentiment without pathos."
- Jeanie K. Smith, Palo Alto Weekly
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​"...Ishida and Haney, hilariously sharp-tongued in their early exchanges, lend the play warmth."
​- Georgia Rowe, San Jose Mercury News
It Can't Happen Here
"...Anna Ishida gives a splendid performance as the serious-minded daughter Mary."
- Richard Connema Talkin', Broadway
"This well-produced gloom features a marvelous and quite active ensemble that also includes some standout work by...Anna Ishida as a grieving widow and fierce rebel."
- Chad Jones, Idiolect