Born and raised in the East Village, Elia is a professional actor, writer and educator. She has received an MFA from The Yale School of Drama (Acting), an MS in Childhood Education from Pace University and a BA in Cultural Anthropology and Peace and Conflict Studies from University of Southern California.
Elia is an NPC O’Neill Finalist (2024), Juilliard Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program Finalist (2024), Terrance McNally Incubator Finalist (2024) and a Playwrights Realm Fellowship Finalist (2022). Elia is also a founding member of two writer’s groups: Veronica, a female playwrights collective and Writers Gym, who wrote 1,000 pages in the pandemic.
As an actor, she has worked at New York Theatre Workshop, Theatre for a New Audience, The Guthrie, Shakespeare Theatre of...
Born and raised in the East Village, Elia is a professional actor, writer and educator. She has received an MFA from The Yale School of Drama (Acting), an MS in Childhood Education from Pace University and a BA in Cultural Anthropology and Peace and Conflict Studies from University of Southern California.
Elia is an NPC O’Neill Finalist (2024), Juilliard Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program Finalist (2024), Terrance McNally Incubator Finalist (2024) and a Playwrights Realm Fellowship Finalist (2022). Elia is also a founding member of two writer’s groups: Veronica, a female playwrights collective and Writers Gym, who wrote 1,000 pages in the pandemic.
As an actor, she has worked at New York Theatre Workshop, Theatre for a New Audience, The Guthrie, Shakespeare Theatre of DC, The Huntington, ACT, The Williamstown Theatre Festival and The Humana Festival among others. Elia has worked on over twenty Film and Television productions. Credits include but are not limited to “FBI”, "New Amsterdam", “Search Party”, “The Deuce" and “The Savant” (Apple TV, 2024).
Elia is also a certified teacher with over nineteen years of teaching experience. She currently teaches theatre through a social justice lens at Lincoln Center Theatre, BAM, and The Manhattan Theatre Club. She also leads playwriting workshops on Rikers Island men’s facilities via MTC’s Write on the Edge Program. Elia is also on faculty in The Experimental Theatre Wing, NYU Tisch School of the Arts where she teaches Advanced Scene Study, Chekhov Lab, Finding Freedom in Challenging Text and proudly devised and directed the 2021 Spring Show, Rituals for a New Future.