Kathi E.B. Ellis

Kathi E.B. Ellis is a professional theatre director who received her MFA as a director from the University of Louisville. Subsequent to receiving her MFA, Kathi received a directing internship at Arena Stage, Washington, DC during which she worked on Livui Cuilei's production of Ghosts. Kathi is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater's Director's Lab, NYC, and an associate member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. During the summer of 2005 she was a participant in the LaMama International Symposium for Directors in Umbria, Italy. Two of Kathi's productions have received Carbonell Nominations, West Side Story (2004) and Jekyll and Hyde (2005), in Florida. Kathi serves as a board member for Louisville's premiere women's theatre company, Pleiades Theatre, and for Juneteenth Legacy Theatre, Louisville's only African-American theatre. For Pleiades she was the lead collaborator for the NEA-funded original work, Alice Moments: Echoes, Ripples and Light which was produced as the Pleiades' Women's History Month production in 2003. Kathi's work with the Juneteenth Legacy Theatre was recognized in January 2006, when she was the featured director in JLT's Seven Year Retrospective. She is a member of the editorial board of "Southern Theatre," a Southeastern Theatre Conference publication, and serves on SETC's k-12 committee. Kathi conducts drama residencies at schools throughout the Commonwealth, both as an independent teaching artist and with Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, Blue Apple Players, and as a member of the Kentucky Arts Council's Roster of Artists. She has conducted arts professional development sessions for Jefferson County Public Schools, the Kentucky Center Arts Academies and the Arts Institute, and the Kentucky Theatre Association. Kathi is the executive director of the Kentucky Alliance for Arts Education, a statewide organization dedicated to ensuring that Kentucky's students receive effective education in dance, drama, music and visual arts. In 2003 she received the first annual Mary K. Bonsteel Tachau Gender Equity Award from the University of Louisville's Women's Center.

Kathi offers residencies at the elementary, middle and high school levels, in which she explores both the drama core content and the connections that drama has across the curriculum, especially social studies.

Elementary School: Focusing on either traditional Native American or West African myths, Kathi's residencies incorporate creative dramatics, mime, and improvisation to explore elements of performance. Elements of Production are included through hands-on activities that focus on costumes and props. Elements of Drama are addressed through adapting novels, such as Number the Stars, Johnny Tremaine (Academic Challenge), etc.

Middle School: At the seventh grade level, Kathi's residencies have focused on the Medieval period and Classical Greece, both of which are studied in the Social Studies curriculum at 7th grade. Activities include production elements and dramatic elements. At the eighth grade level, Kathi focuses on performance elements through student-generated scripts that explore periods of American History, e.g. Revolutionary Way, Westward Expansion, Civil Way, etc. Kathi is developing materials to address the new area of Bunraku puppet theatre in the sixth grade drama core content.

High School: Kathi's residencies at this level connect directly to the content in the chart of periods, styles, and cultures. Residencies can include text analysis, character development, production elements, performance elements-each applied to a script or playwright identified in the core content.

Any of Kathi's residencies can be adapted to various lengths of time; the optimum residency length is 10 days. Kathi is also willing to custom-design a residency to meet the needs of the classroom teacher.