Elle Thoni

Elle Thoni (they/them) is a femmebeast playwright, screenwriter, and public artist from Dakota land in Minneapolis. In search of wildness amidst this Great Unraveling, they write plays about queer shapeshifters, emergent ecologies, and unlikely kinship. Their plays include From the Ground Up (Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, Planet Earth Playwriting Award, and second place Mark Twain Award for Comic Playwriting - Kennedy Center) and Monstrous, or, A Short Narrative on an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits (O’Neill Semifinalist, second place Paula Vogel Playwriting Award - Kennedy Center). TAMARACK, their small town dramedy TV pilot about critical mineral mining and green colonialism in Minnesota’s Northland, was recently announced as the $25,000 winner of the CMU-Alfred P. Sloan Script Competition. Elle is a current Core Apprentice Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center, a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and an anxious amateur beekeeper. As a teacher, they love working with students who are open to evolving their practice through creative experimentation. Recent teaching artist credits include Carnegie Mellon University, The Jungle Theater, Open World Learning Academy, and Assemble: A Community Space for Arts + Technology. M.F.A. Dramatic Writing: Carnegie Mellon University. ellethoni.com