Elle Thoni
Elle Thoni (they/them) is a queer playwright, screenwriter, and public artist from Dakota land in Minneapolis, MN. In search of wildness amidst this Great Unraveling, they write about how our sense of belonging, identity, and loss are changing with our climate. Drawing from a divergent background in ensemble-devised performance, large-scale puppetry, and documentary, Elle creates pieces that are as lush and dynamic as the living systems they are inspired by. They are the recipient of the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, second place Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and Mark Twain Award for Comic Playwriting, and a Planet Earth Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center. TAMARACK, their small town dramady pilot about critical mineral mining in Minnesota's Northland, received a $25,000 First Place Award from the CMU-Alfred P. Sloan Script Competition. Their work has been supported by the New Harmony Project, the Mid-America Theater Conference, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (Minneapolis-St. Paul), Everwood Farmstead Foundation, the Frank Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, and the Network of Ensemble Theaters, among others. Commissions include In the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theatre, Walking Shadow Theater Company, and Northern Lights.mn. Elle holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University and is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild. They keep bees, and vice versa.