Ellen is a director and theatre maker. Recent projects include: Watch on the Rhine (Donmar); Insurrection: A Work in Progress (Royal Opera House); Purgatory in Ingolstadt (CSSD); Dear Elizabeth, Effigies of Wickedness (Songs banned by the Nazis), The Unknown Island, Idomeneus (Gate); Our Town (Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park); The Wolves (Stratford East); Othello (Shakespeare’s Globe); Aladdin, Cinderella (Lyric Hammersmith); The Rolling Stone (Orange Tree/Royal Exchange, Manchester); The Remains of Maisie Duggan (Abbey Theatre, Dublin); The Glass Menagerie (Headlong); Anna Karenina (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Henry the Fifth (Unicorn); Glitterland (Secret Theatre/Lyric Hammersmith); Ivan and the Dogs (Olivier Award-nomination, Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre; Actors Touring Company/Soho).

Ellen McDougall was Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre from 2017 to 2022. Ellen was a director in the Secret Theatre Company at the Lyric Hammersmith from 2013-5. She trained as an assistant to Katie Mitchell, Bijan Sheibani and Marianne Elliott. She was awarded an International Artists’ Development Award (ACE/British Council) in 2012.