Elizabeth Shannon Ellis is an emerging actor and playwright. Her work mainly focuses on the stories of queer young women, and tackles issues such as gun violence, violence against women, and homophobia, using realism and magic realism. Her play "On/Off" was part of the 2024 Downtown Urban Arts Festival, receiving second place for full-lengths after a performance at Theatre Row. In 2025, she returned to the festival with her play "Waiting for the 6 Train". She has completed a residency and commission with Young Playwrights Theatre of DC and is a four time winner of The Blank Theatre’s Young Playwrights Festival. She was an inaugural winner of ENOUGH! Plays to End Gun Violence in 2020, having her play “Loaded Language” produced in 47 places across the world and counting; in 2025, she was...
Elizabeth Shannon Ellis is an emerging actor and playwright. Her work mainly focuses on the stories of queer young women, and tackles issues such as gun violence, violence against women, and homophobia, using realism and magic realism. Her play "On/Off" was part of the 2024 Downtown Urban Arts Festival, receiving second place for full-lengths after a performance at Theatre Row. In 2025, she returned to the festival with her play "Waiting for the 6 Train". She has completed a residency and commission with Young Playwrights Theatre of DC and is a four time winner of The Blank Theatre’s Young Playwrights Festival. She was an inaugural winner of ENOUGH! Plays to End Gun Violence in 2020, having her play “Loaded Language” produced in 47 places across the world and counting; in 2025, she was invited back t co-write the Prologue and Epilogue for the fourth cycle of ENOUGH! with Wyn Alyse Thomas. She is the 2023 winner of the Wichita State University Bela Kiralyfalvi National Student Playwriting Competition. She was a winner of the 2023 Horizon Theatre’s New South Young Playwrights Festival in Atlanta. One of her ten-minute plays, “Kaylee and Adelyn” was reviewed by theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck on WYPR (August 24, 2023), saying “…the play’s ending just punches you in the gut… a stand-out, well-written play”, and was finalist in the 49th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival (OOB). She has worked with Baltimore Centerstage, South Coast Repertory, Olney Theatre of DC, Rorschach Theatre of DC, and many others. She was a YOUTHPLAYS publication finalist, is published on Playscripts, and is published in three Smith and Kraus monologue and 10 minute play anthologies. She is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College with a BFA in Acting and a BA in Theatre: Writing for the Stage. Instagram: @_elizabethshannon