E. M. Lewis

Ellen M. Lewis (professionally known as E. M. Lewis) is an American playwright, teacher, and opera librettist based in Oregon.

Lewis pursued as degrees in literature (BA English, MFA Writing) before moving to Baltimore in 2013 to train with the American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program.

Her work has gone on to receive critical success. Edward Albee, in his award citation for Heads, remarked it was ″provocative and wonderfully threatening.″ The LA Weekly observed the play that “the question of who we are beneath our posturing lands with such force, it jangles the nerves long after the play has ended.” Of Magellanica The New Yorker wrote ″part 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 complex—or too disturbing—to face.″ Her one-man The Gun Show, which went on tour across the U.S. and to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, has been called a “compact yet high-caliber theatrical, a short one-hour blast of personal recollection, rhetoric and genuinely conflicted questioning.”

Her plays have been workshop, 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, and now frequently gives workshops through the ArtsHub at Artists Repertory Theatre. She is a member of the writing collective LineStorm Playwrights, International Center for Women Playwrights, the National Opera Center, and the Dramatists Guild.

Awards

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, Arizona Opera’s “Arizona Bold!” program, and a semi-finalist for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference.

• 2018 Edgerton Award, Theater Communications Group
• 2016 Drama Fellowship, Oregon Book Awards
• 2012 Drama Fellowship, New Jersey State Arts Commission
• 2010 Hodder Fellowship, Princeton University
• 2009 Harold and Mimi Steinberg New Play Award, American Theater Critics Association
• 2009 EcoDrama Playwrighting Competition, University of Oregon
• 2008 Francesca Primus Prize, American Theater Critics Association
• 2008 Ted Schmitt Award, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle
• 2008 Ashland New Plays Festival
• 2007 Production of the Year, L.A. Weekly
• 2007 New Works for the Stage Competition, Coe College
• 2007 IN10 Competition, University of Maryland / Baltimore County

Full-Length Plays

• Apple Season
• Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday
• The Great Divide
• The Gun Show
• Heads
• How the Light Gets In
• Infinite Black Suitcase
• Magellanica
• Now Comes the Night
• Reading to Vegetables
• Song of Extinction
• The Stone Languages
• True Story
• You Can See All the Stars
• The Great Divide, co-commission for Artists Repertory Theatre and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival “American Revolutions” cycle

One-Acts

• The Edge of Ross Island

Operas

• Town Hall with Theo Popov
• Dear Erich with Ted Rosenthal
• The Crossing with Clarice Assad
• Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Fallen Giant with Evan Meier

Published Works

• Lewis, E.M. (2010). Song of Extinction. Samuel French. ISBN 9780573697388.
• Lewis, E.M. (2011). Infinite Black Suitcase. Samuel French. ISBN 9780573699603.
• Lewis, E.M. (2019). The Gun Show. Samuel French. ISBN 9780573707384.
• Bray, John Patrick, ed. (November 1, 2016). The Best Plays from American Theater Festivals 2015. Applause. ISBN 9781495057748.