Playwright · Screenwriter · Professor · Queer Jester from Amish PA
(they/she)
LA/NYC
"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

Ellis, like the island (they/she), is a Columbia University Playwriting MFA graduate (2023), professor at Penn State, Columbia, and St. Peter's University, produced playwright and commissioned screenwriter, and gay disgrace to their Amish Lancaster, PA upbringing.
Through irreverent yet intimate, shamelessly Gen Z, coming-of-age dark comedies, centering quirky cults and cathartic queer love, Ellis explores vulnerability and connection in our world today.
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Currently bicoastal, Ellis is developing a feature with Andrew Barchilon (The Eric Andre Show), award-winning pilot with CAA and Leigh Silverman (SUFFS), and musical with 90s boy band Dream Street, produced by Taylor Banks and Micheal Lamon (Merrily We Roll Along).
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This summer, Ellis was a Resident Playwright at Williamstown Theatre Festival (2024). Prior, she served as Showrunner of the Episodic Theatre Project, 5 hour-long shows produced at Under St. Mark's Theater (Feb-May 2024).
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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 numerous national and international productions (2021-present).
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They've been awarded Semifinalist recognition by O'Neill Playwrights Conference, American Blues Theater, Lanford Wilson Festival, Pipeline PlayLab, and Irons in the Fire, and a Finalist with the Dramatists Guild, Emerson Stages, Kernodle, and James Madison Festival, to name a few (2023-pres). Their pilot TAART is a Semifinalist in contests by Slamdance, Stage 32, The Script Lab, Filmmatic, and ScreenCraft and ranked in the Top 1% of 160,000 scripts on Coverfly (2025).
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Professionally, Ellis has 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 Resident Playwright at Prague Performing Arts Academy (2019) and Wallace Stegner House (2020), member of playwrights groups at Speranza Theater (2021 & 2024-2025) and Yonder Window Theater (2022), and published in Borderless Thalia Anthology, sold at The Drama Book Shop (2023).
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Owing to their rural lower-SES roots, Ellis writes obsessively about wealth and class privilege, social performatism, political polarization, toxic co-dependency and gender roles, commodification of identity, and existential psychology, yeehaw :) ​​​​​​​​​
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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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