ELLA GRACE
WRITER, COMPOSER & LYRICIST

I grew up on a farm in Scotland then moved to London to train at the London School of Musical Theatre. After graduating, I fronted alt-rock band Hitchcock Blonde before embarking on a career as a musical theatre writer. My first musical TROUBLE was presented at the New York Musical Theatre Festival and my work has since been commissioned and performed across the UK and internationally. Credits include: OPHELIA (Viborg Theatre), PETER PAN (Serenbe Playhouse), SALOME (New York Theatre Workshop) and BLACKOUT (Harlow Playhouse).

I’m currently developing THE WILDWOOD, a forest/folk musical rooted in Finnish and Scottish forest mythology, exploring how we might mend our relationship to nature and why this is so urgent and important. And SCHOLL, a folk-pop musical based on the true story of anti-Nazi resistance fighters Hans and Sophie Scholl, which received a full production at Chichester Conservatoire in 2024, having been showcased at BEAM 2023 at Oxford Playhouse.

I was selected for Mercury Musical Development, Musical Theatre Network, Royal & Derngate and China Plate's inaugural Musical Theatre Darkroom, where I developed BLACKOUT, a live-theatre headphone musical.

As a television writer, I co-developed and co-wrote the pilot FARM GIRLS, optioned by Avalon Entertainment and sold to ITV in 2023.

A recipient of the Michael Grandage Futures Award, a Peggy Ramsey Foundation Award, a Society For Theatre Research Grant and a finalist for both the Perfect Pitch Award and the RSC's Song for Shakespeare Competition, I was also shortlisted for both the National Theatre of Scotland and The Lowry's Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer positions.

I make work that looks for the beauty hidden within the sometimes overwhelming  darkness of our humanity and offers hope in the promise that love will always win out.