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"First-rate and surprising."

-Steve Martin (for real, not a bit)
 
“A bold, intense, unapologetic writer with comedic dialogue, historical intentions, and stunning
expressionism, who chooses great stories to tell, leaving you feeling disturbed, inspired, and seen.”
-The Athena Project

"A complex, fascinating talent with amazing energy."
-Eastend Arts Council

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Home: About Me
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Ellis, like the island (they/she), is a Columbia University Playwriting MFA graduate (2023), professor at Penn State, Columbia, and St. Peter's University, and ambitious gay disgrace to their Amish Lancaster, PA upbringing.

Through irreverent yet intimate, shamelessly Gen-Z, coming-of-age dark comedies and satires, Ellis invites broad audiences into cult-like communities and cathartic queer relationships. Owing to her rural lower-SES roots, she gets fired up by class/wealth privilege and guilt, commodification of identity, political and social polarization, psychology and existentialism, love and co-dependence, and self-projection and vulnerability in our cynical, digital age (as exemplified by this chaotic string of buzzwords).

Currently, Ellis is developing their TV/film projects with collaborators Leigh Silverman (SUFFS), Andrew Barchilon (The Eric Andre Show), Mandy Greenfield at Red Yes Studio, Corinne Hayoun at Manage-ment, and Eastend Entertainment.

 

Ellis is also serving as Showrunner of the Episodic Theatre Project (Feb-May 2024), and she'll be a Playwright-in-Residence at Williamstown Theatre Festival (2024).

Ellis's full-length plays ONCE ON RUMSPRINGA, WHITE BITCHES IN DELHI, and WHERE I'VE NEVER GONE have been presented in NYC by The Wild Project, Westbeth Artists Gallery (site-specific), Bohemian National Hall, UP Theater, Yonder Window Theatre, and Chain Theatre, atop national and international productions (2021-present).

Professionally, they've been a mentee of Steve Martin (2022-23), Writers Assistant to Bess Wohl (2022) and Edward Einhorn (2019-21), and full-time screenwriter for episodic app, Inkitt-Galatea (2019-20).

Additionally, she's been a Playwright-in-Residence at Prague Performing Arts Academy (2019) and Wallace Stegner House (2020), a member of playwrights groups at Speranza Theater (2021 & 2024) and Yonder Window Theater (2022), and published in Borderless Thalia Anthology, sold at The Drama Book Shop (2023).

This year alone (2023-24), they've been a Semifinalist for the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, American Blues Theater Award, Lanford Wilson Festival, and Pipeline PlayLab, and a Finalist with the Dramatists Guild, Emerson Stages, and James Madison Festival, to name a few. Their pilot TAART is a Semifinalist in contests by The Script Lab, Filmmatic, and ScreenCraft Fellowship (2024).

Lowkey, Ellis has also completed five degrees, two theses, and two fellowships at Penn State Honors College (2019), hitch-hiked solo across numerous continents, and worked as a stand-up comic and certified psychotherapist—before realizing she just needed therapy. Regardless, for jokes or diagnoses, they're your dealer.

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learning, teaching, creating, live-laugh-loving, et. al.

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