Ella Boureau

Ella Boureau was born in New York City, raised in the same Pennsylvania stone barn as her mother, and has roots in coastal villages in France and Algeria. Upon reaching the age of consent she immediately returned to New York City, allegedly to study poetry at The New School, but secretly to people-watch and be gay. Ella writes about sex, mediterranean myths, and female dirtbaggery. She is interested in rage and grief: when they are funny, when they are scary, when they are heartbreaking, and when they just get so twisted up that they break into something else entirely. Her plays include: FUCKING AJAX!: An Appalachian Gay Soul Suicide Musical (Zarkower Award for First Year Playwriting, Leah Ryan Fund Honorable Mention, Dramatist Guild Fellow Semi-finalist); CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS...

Ella Boureau was born in New York City, raised in the same Pennsylvania stone barn as her mother, and has roots in coastal villages in France and Algeria. Upon reaching the age of consent she immediately returned to New York City, allegedly to study poetry at The New School, but secretly to people-watch and be gay. Ella writes about sex, mediterranean myths, and female dirtbaggery. She is interested in rage and grief: when they are funny, when they are scary, when they are heartbreaking, and when they just get so twisted up that they break into something else entirely. Her plays include: FUCKING AJAX!: An Appalachian Gay Soul Suicide Musical (Zarkower Award for First Year Playwriting, Leah Ryan Fund Honorable Mention, Dramatist Guild Fellow Semi-finalist); CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS (O'Neill Playwriting Conference semi-finalist); and Helps to Hate You a Little: a Lovestory (Cloud City, Dixon Place, Fresh Fruit Festival @The Wild Project). She has an MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College.

Scripts

Quand Tu Sors du Feu, or Wakteli Tokhrij Mil Nar, OR When You Leave the Fire

by Ella Boureau

Cast Size

3—6

Genre

comedy,

dark comedy,

docudrama/historic,

drama,

fantasy,

musical

"Quand tu sors du feu" is a "three-hander" that is equal parts 1930s cabaret, andalusi music, and téléphone arabe. Ella and her ghosts-- the Tunisian Jewish vocalist Habiba Msika, and her French-Algerian grandfather André-- move through time in many combinations, exploring the violence and pleasure of their close relationships, each shedding light on the dark corners of the other, whether they want that light...

"Quand tu sors du feu" is a "three-hander" that is equal parts 1930s cabaret, andalusi music, and téléphone arabe. Ella and her ghosts-- the Tunisian Jewish vocalist Habiba Msika, and her French-Algerian grandfather André-- move through time in many combinations, exploring the violence and pleasure of their close relationships, each shedding light on the dark corners of the other, whether they want that light shed or not. For some, intimacy is less a pure pleasure and more a midnight haunting.

FUCKING AJAX! An Appalachian Gay Soul Suicide Musical

by Ella Boureau

Cast Size

7

Genre

adaptation,

dark comedy,

faith-based,

musical,

political

Ajax, a trans activist beloved in her NYC queer community, has committed suicide. When the community learns that she is to be buried in her West Virginia hometown by her unaccepting fundamentalist family instead of New York, they set out on a road trip to retrieve Ajax's body and honor her last wishes. Fucking Ajax confronts the limits of both biological and queer family and stares down the long shadow of...

Ajax, a trans activist beloved in her NYC queer community, has committed suicide. When the community learns that she is to be buried in her West Virginia hometown by her unaccepting fundamentalist family instead of New York, they set out on a road trip to retrieve Ajax's body and honor her last wishes. Fucking Ajax confronts the limits of both biological and queer family and stares down the long shadow of repressed queer childhood.

CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS

by Ella Boureau

Cast Size

6

Genre

adventure,

dark comedy,

experimental,

fantasy,

political

CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS is a multilingual retrofuturist couscous western starring two eco-militant sisters living on a polluted Mediterranean beach. Homeless and strange, Older Sister & Younger Sister spend their days surviving on a polluted mediterranean beach while plotting the destruction of a nearby processing plant, but things go awry when Younger Sister meets a...

CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS is a multilingual retrofuturist couscous western starring two eco-militant sisters living on a polluted Mediterranean beach. Homeless and strange, Older Sister & Younger Sister spend their days surviving on a polluted mediterranean beach while plotting the destruction of a nearby processing plant, but things go awry when Younger Sister meets a policeman who promises to get her out of poverty.

Helps to Hate You a Little: a Lovestory

by Ella Boureau

Cast Size

5—6

Genre

dark comedy,

fable/folktale,

fantasy,

political,

romantic comedy

Nasreen-- a Persephone for the 21st century French-Algerian dyke diaspora-- lives in New York City: above-ground where she engages in emotionally questionable secret sexual relationships, and below-ground, where she confronts the animal of her self and other outcasts at a gay bar called The Scapegoat. When a lover who hurt her above-ground wanders into the Scapegoat one night, fur flies, teeth clash, and the...

Nasreen-- a Persephone for the 21st century French-Algerian dyke diaspora-- lives in New York City: above-ground where she engages in emotionally questionable secret sexual relationships, and below-ground, where she confronts the animal of her self and other outcasts at a gay bar called The Scapegoat. When a lover who hurt her above-ground wanders into the Scapegoat one night, fur flies, teeth clash, and the possibility for catharsis through rage and violence reveals itself in an epic wrestling match.

Comme Une Voleuse [or] Like a Thief

by Ella Boureau

Cast Size

2

Genre

adventure,

immersive,

movement/physical,

romantic comedy

A one night Tinder hook-up in a small Parisian attic room between the French-Algerian-American New Yorker Lola and the Algerian-Parisian Nadira. Post dating apps, and post pandemic, when it seems we are more thirsty for and more afraid of intimacy than ever, how many layers can one late night meet up contain?