Ellen is an accomplished theatre artist in Calgary, Alberta with more than fifteen years of experience in non-profit management, including a decade as the senior producer of award-winning theatre company, Downstage.
Her artistic practice includes work as a playwright, actor, director and dramaturge. A graduate of the National Theatre School's Acting Program, Ellen has performed at Vertigo Theatre, Arts Club Theatre, One Yellow Rabbit, Theatre Calgary, the National Arts Centre, Alberta Theatre Projects and Sage Theatre. Her play Life Below won the 2022 Alberta Playwrights' Network Alberta Playwriting Competition Sharon Pollock Prize following development as Playwright-in-Residence at Downstage and at the Caravan Farm Theatre National Playwrights Retreat.
My Family and Other Endangered Species, an adaptation of Carla Gunn’s novel Amphibian written with Ellen’s frequent collaborator Braden Griffiths, was published by Playwrights’ Canada Press, received Best Play at the Calgary Critics Awards, and was nominated for the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award. Her second collaboration with Griffiths, Cipher, won the Alberta Playwriting Competition, and premiered at Arts Club (2020) and Vertigo (2022). Both Species and Cipher were nominated for Betty Mitchell Awards for Outstanding New Play.
Ellen has brought an artistic lens to collaborations with a wide range of not-for-profit organizations, including writing a satirical panel discussion for the Alberta Climate Summit and co-facilitating multiple artistic projects with Calgarians experiencing homelessness. She is passionate about the potential of creative approaches to strategy, storytelling, and collaboration to affect social change.
