Ellen M. Lewis (professionally known as E. M. Lewis) is an American playwright, teacher, and opera librettist based in Oregon.
Lewis pursued degrees in literature (BA English, MFA Writing) before moving to Baltimore in 2013 to train with the American Lyric TheaterâÂÂs Composer Librettist Development Program.
Her work has gone on to receive critical success. Edward Albee, in his award citation for Heads, remarked it was â³provocative and wonderfully threatening.â³ The LA Weekly observed of the play that âÂÂthe question of who we are beneath our posturing lands with such force, it jangles the nerves long after the play has ended.â Of Magellanica The New Yorker wrote â³part drawing-room comedy, part locked-room mystery, Magellanica de-abstracts the larger threats surrounding the characters and their relationships, gradually immersing the audience in possibilities usually too complexâÂÂor too disturbingâÂÂto face.â³ Her one-man The Gun Show, which went on tour across the U.S. and to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, has been called a âÂÂcompact yet high-caliber theatrical, a short one-hour blast of personal recollection, rhetoric and genuinely conflicted questioning.âÂÂ
Her plays have been workshopped, developed, and produced by a range of organizations, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, American Lyric Theatre, The Lark, Page 73, Project Y, Ashland New Plays Festival, Arkansas New Play Festival, PlayFest Santa Barbara, EcoDrama Festival, the HotCity Greenhouse Festival, Great Plains Theater Conference, Last Frontier Theater Conference, William Inge Center for the Arts, Artists Repertory Theater, TimeLine Theater, Guthrie Theatre, Playwrights Theater of New Jersey, New Voices for the Theater Program, Theatre Latte Da, Moving Arts, Passage Theater, 16th Street Theater, and University of Maryland Opera Studio, among others.
Originally from rural Oregon, Lewis has taught at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Lewis & Clark College, Independence Community College, and Hostos Community College. She returned to the Pacific northwest in 2014, where she writes and frequently gives workshops through the ArtsHub at Artists Repertory Theatre. She is a member of the LineStorm Playwrights writing collective, International Center for Women Playwrights, the National Opera Center, and the Dramatists Guild.
In addition to this positive critical reception, Lewis has been a finalist for the Sundance Theater Lab, Oregon Book Award, the Shakespeare's Sisters fellowship, and Arizona OperaâÂÂs âÂÂArizona Bold!â program, and a semi-finalist for the OâÂÂNeill Playwrights Conference.