Ellis Stump: playwright
Ellis, like the Island (she/her/they/them), is a NYC-based but globetrotting Columbia University Playwriting MFA (2020-2023) and Professor at Barnard, accredited screenwriter, standup comic, research- oriented interviewer (with a background in Clinical Psychotherapy), and queer Czech Jew from rural Lancaster County, PA. With biting humor, heart, and hope, the Ascending Playwright 2021 (Yonder Window Theatre Company) invites all audiences into complex communities and performative characters. This results in multimedia, lyrical dark comedies and satires spotlighting dynamics of political and personal power. Professionally, Ellis has worked as a full-time screenwriter in Berlin and resident filmmaker throughout Scotland. 

Ellis’s full-length plays have been developed, published, and produced off-Broadway and internationally, with New York Theatre Festival, Prague Performing Arts Academy, Main Santa Clarita, Bohemian National Society, Over Due Theatre Company, Untitled Theatre #61, Iowa State University, and Penn State, to name a few. They’ve won worldwide awards, including 1st Place in Vaclav Havel Library Competition 2019, Austin Film Festival Finalist 2021, and Athena Project Finalist 2020. Ellis has workshopped these projects in-residence with numerous organizations, from Prague Academy to Wallace Stegner House in Saskatchewan. Most recently, October 2021, Ellis earned yearlong residency spots in Speranza Theatre in Jersey City and Yonder Window in Brooklyn. Currently underway is the off-Broadway premiere of Ellis’s site-specific Diane Arbus biopic (Where I’ve Never Gone) by Westbeth Artists Residency. This April 2022, the University of Toronto presents Ellis’s satirical Havel adaptation (The People’s Toast), and hosts Ellis, at their Global Symposium. 

From Penn State Honors College 2019, Ellis earned five Bachelor degrees in Film/Media, English, Gender & Sexuality, Psych, and International Studies, alongside multiple fellowships. Always ambitious, Ellis also founded Penn State’s only gender-inclusive initiative for sexual assault resources, and spent semesters in Germany, Czech Republic, and India. In their plentiful spare time, Ellis cartoons, cooks, and choreographs. 

Learn more: ellisstump.com / @ellis_liketheisland 

Ella Jane New (LAB DIRECTOR) is a theatre and film maker based in NYC. After receiving her MFA from University of London, Ella wrote and directed Banquet of Chestnuts at the George Wood Theatre in London, where she received the Goldsmiths New Writing Award. Other awards include: WOMEN MAKE MOVIES Fellowship and Eastman Foundation Grant and was chosen for the Creative Minds Program in association with Sundance Institute & Sundance Film Festival. Ella's work has been seen around the world at the U.N. Global Wake-Up Fest; Unspoken human rights Festival and has received distribution by BBC Worldwide, Al Jazeera and Globostat Brazil."