Join Ellie Keel (Sunday Times bestselling author, award-winning theatre producer, and Founder Director of the Women's Prize for Playwriting) for a masterclass in building a successful career in the arts.
Ellie Keel studied German and Italian at Brasenose College, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours in 2014. She spent two years as the University Drama Officer before forging a career as an independent theatre producer of new plays. In 2024, she was the youngest ever winner of The Stage's Producer of the Year Award. More recently, her novel The Four (HarperCollins) became a Sunday Times bestseller. In 2019, Ellie co-founded the Women's Prize for Playwriting with Paines Plough. With a £20,000 prize fund and a judging panel chaired by Indhu Rubasingham (Director of the National Theatre), the Women's Prize for Playwriting has become the leading award for female and non-binary playwrights in the UK and Ireland.
In this masterclass, Ellie will reflect on her multifaceted career in the arts – spanning theatre, publishing, and campaigning. She will share practical tools for building a sustainable creative career, alongside insights into the strategies that have shaped her success, and the importance of resilience in the creative industries. There will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions.
Please find Ellie's full bio below:
Ellie Keel is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Four (HarperCollins), an Olivier Award-nominated theatre producer, and the youngest ever winner of The Stage’s Producer of the Year Award (in 2024). She is the Founder Director of the Women’s Prize for Playwriting, the leading award for female and non-binary playwrights from the UK and Ireland.
With her company EKP, she has produced over twenty-five new plays to critical acclaim in London, at the Edinburgh Festivals, and on tour across the UK, at venues including the Royal Court Theatre, Barbican Centre, Southbank Centre, Chichester Festival Theatre, and Sheffield Theatres. She is the leader of the National Theatre’s How To Be A Producer course, and is a frequent contributor to masterclasses, panel discussions and the media on theatre producing and wider cultural topics. Her journalism and short stories have appeared in The Guardian, The Daily Express, and The Stage.
She is a Trustee of the Brontë Society and London Youth Theatre, and in 2017 she collaborated in the founding of leading LGBT+ youth charity, Just Like Us. In August 2025, her début play SKYE: A Thriller had a critically-acclaimed, sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Her second novel, A Bad Day To Hide A Body, will be published by HarperCollins in January 2027.