Ellen Lewis BA'94

E. M. (Ellen Margaret) Lewis is an award-winning playwright, teacher, and opera librettist. Her work has been produced around the world, and published by Samuel French. She received the Steinberg Award for How the Light Gets In and Song of Extinction and the Primus Prize for Heads from the American Theater Critics Association, the Ted Schmitt Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a playwriting fellowship from the New Jersey State Arts Commission, the 2016 Oregon Literary Fellowship in Drama, and an Edgerton Award for Magellanica. She is currently enjoying a six-year National Playwright Residency at Artists Repertory Theater, provided by the Mellon Foundation. Her opera Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Fallen Giant, written with composer Evan Meier, premiered at Opera Modesto in January 2024. Lewis teaches in Lesley University’s low-residency MFA Program. She lives on her family’s farm in Oregon.