Elle Thoni (they/them pronouns) is a queer femmebeast playwright, performance-maker, and public artist investigating how our sense of belonging, identity, and loss are changing with our climate. Their plays are provoked by questions of “wildness” amidst colonial-capitalist collapse, often taking shape as emergent ecologies wherein characters blur the binary between human and animal.

Elle has particularly enjoyed engaging in cross-disciplinary collaborations across the arts-sciences spectrum via projects with Porte Parole Productions (Montréal, Quebéc), Northern Lights MN, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (Minneapolis, MN) and the Center for Arts and Society at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA). Since 2020, they have developed and toured original ensemble works under the banner of Wild Conspiracy (wildconspiracy.org).

Elle’s work has been supported by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Network of Ensemble Theaters, among others. Born and raised on Dahkóta homelands in Minneapolis, Elle is a 2024 MFA Dramatic Writing candidate at Carnegie Mellon University (Jaödeogë - Pittsburgh) as well as a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. They are grateful to their many human and more than human teachers, including the Mississippi River.