Ella Hope-Higginson

Bio

Ella Hope-Higginson is a Bristol born, Tāmaki Makaurau based creative. She graduated from Toi Whakaari: NZ drama school in 2015 with a Bachelor of Performing Arts. She was awarded the inaugural Berwyn Gibbons Award for top actor, which also came with a cash grant to encourage her to continue making her own work.  She is a multiple-award nominated playwright, with her scripts having been commissioned performed and developed throughout Aotearoa. Her first play, which she also co-directed, was selected for Playmarkets ‘Playwrights b4 25 Project’. Subsequent plays have been funded for development through Auckland Theatre Company's literary programme, staged as part of Centrepoint Theatre's Sunday Script Sessions and in 2020 she was commissioned to create a new work in collaboration with Two Productions in Christchurch for the ‘Theatreliveonline’ platform. 

Ella's the director and co-creator of Sidekick, which was nominated for Best Actor and Best NZ Narrative at the NZ WebFest awards. Her funded short Waitress can be viewed on Maori television on demand, created with support from NZ On Air, Te Māngai Pāho, the Vista Foundation and the New Zealand Film Commission. She's one of nine filmmakers selected to work on the book to screen adaption of Headlands: New Stories of Anxiety, adapting and directing the essay ‘Worry People’ into a new short film. She was an Acting coach on NZ Feature Film and festival success Poppy and is also a member of Heartthrobs, an award-winning collective of Auckland's top comedians and comedy actors. 

In her spare time she makes strange pottery candlestick holders.

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 “Raggedy Anne and Mr Pith is full of beautiful, raw and honest truths within a playful and bizarre world. It’s absurd, it’s strange, and it’s magical. It is Pinter-esq and Stoppard-ish and makes me want more” - Catherine Hart for Artmurmurs. 

 “The abstract, absurdist style of the writing, with its existentialist undertones is reminiscent of the plays of Beckett and Ionesco, where the writing is often a metaphor for human existence, a production well worth seeing”. - Ewan Colmon for The Dominion Post.