Ellis is a theatre maker and a filmmaker from South East London of Bajan and Irish heritage. His work explores Black working class stories using movement and music. He has worked across multiple roles in theatre including facilitating, writing and producing as a freelance director working with many theatres including The Young Vic, Almeida and Lyric Hammersmith.
As an assistant director, Ellis has recently worked with Highrise Theatre’s production of ‘The U.K Drill Project’ at the Barbican and assisted director Dadiow Lin on the production of Lauren Yee’s critically acclaimed ‘in a word’ at the Young Vic. He is currently working as Assistant Director at the Young Vic on ‘Beneatha’s Place’, written and directed by the Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah.
As a director, Ellis wrote and directed an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder for the Lyric Hammersmith’s Evolution Festival, and wrote and directed his own new play ‘No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish’ produced by Wooden Arrow Theatre.
As a filmmaker Ellis is currently developing a new short film. He was cinematographer/co-director on ‘Deshi Girl’ written by Tia Ali which toured internationally and recently screened at BFI Southbank as part of the UK Asian Film Festival 2023. He also was assistant director on a documentary ‘Blackness on Display – Monuments and Museums’ that is due to release in late 2023.
Ellis had worked as a curator and has worked with V&A Museum as assistant curator in their Theatre & Performance department, and co-curated the recent theatre and performance festival in April 2023 for which he led a talk highlighting the work of Peter Minshall who contributed significantly to Carnival costume design.
