about

Elle Thoni (they/them) is a femmebeast playwright, performance-maker, and public artist returning to relationship in this time of Great Unraveling.

A lifelong student of myth, Elle’s performance works investigate how our sense of belonging, identity, and loss are changing with our climate. Their plays are odes to emergent ecologies, wherein humans are but one of the actors in a much larger drama. Elle draws from a divergent background in ensemble-devised performance, puppet & mask, and documentary theatre to create pieces that are as dynamic as the living systems they are inspired by.

From 2013-2015, they apprenticed with playwright Annabel Soutar of Porte Parole Productions (Tiotia:ke – Montréal, Québec) to help develop two freshwater-themed projects for the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto/Tkaronto. In 2017, Elle had the honor of serving as Assistant Curator for the Twin Cities’ annual Northern Spark Festival, animating 70+ public art projects across 7 neighborhoods of Minneapolis/St. Paul under the theme of Climate Chaos | People Rising. Elle has since written, created, and toured original ensemble works with their queer performance project Wild Conspiracy (wildconspiracy.org), best known for their original honeybee futurist musical Queen B.

Elle's work has been recognized and/or supported by The Kennedy Center (second place recipient, Paula Vogel Playwriting Award), The Playwrights' Center (finalist, Jerome Fellowship in Playwriting), The New Harmony Project, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (Minneapolis-St. Paul), the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Network of Ensemble Theaters, and the Frank Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, among others. Born and raised on Dahkóta homelands in Minneapolis, Elle is a 2024 MFA Dramatic Writing candidate at Carnegie Mellon University (Jaödeogë - Pittsburgh) as well as a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. They love the Mississippi River, and other movements of water and people.