Sarah Taylor Ellis

Biography

"Frozen meets Kurt Weill" (nachtkritik). Whether collaborating on an original musical for an inclusive theater in Berlin, an anthem for a women's chorus marching on NYC, or songs for a Shakespeare play at the UK's National Theatre, composer, musical director and lecturer Sarah Taylor Ellis aims to embrace the inherent hybridity and multiplicity of music theater as an art form.

Sarah is currently developing an indie folk musical adaptation of Die Mitte der Welt, based on the beloved coming-of-age novel by Andreas Steinhöfel, with book and lyrics by Niklas Wagner. The musical will premiere in January 2026 at Landestheater Linz.

Sarah is a regular collaborator with Berlin-based Musiktheatergruppe glanz&krawall as a composer and musical director. Their latest project is the punk opera SCHROFFENSTEIN: In Grund und Boden (Heimathafen Neukölln, May 2025). After a sold-out and critically-acclaimed first run in December 2024, Die Tüten aus der Verwaltung: Das Bürokratie Musical von glanz&krawall und Theater Thikwa was invited to the 2025 Festival Politik im Freien Theater in Leipzig and returns to Berlin for a 2nd Wiederaufnahme in November 2025. Sarah was also previously the musical director for STADT DER TEUFEL and Korrepetitorin for LULU: Revanche im Zirkuszelt, both of which play again in 2025.

These Girls Have Demons, an original feminist rock musical with book and lyrics by Ovation Award-winning playwright Meghan Brown, is in development with Pittsburgh CLO and Apiro Entertainment, which supported the first German-language workshop of the show in March 2025. EMMA: No One But Herself, with book and lyrics also by Brown, had its first production in London in July 2023 and is now available for licensing with Uproar Theatrics. Four-time Olivier Award winner Maria Friedman starred in the 2019 London reading of The Trojan Women, directed by Adele Thomas; with libretto by Ellen McLaughlin, this hybrid musical/chamber opera was the recipient of a 2019 OPERA America Discovery Grant.

Sarah was the composer and musical director for The UK National Theatre's Hamlet for young audiences, adapted by Jude Christian with direction by Tinuke Craig. Sarah has also composed stand-alone songs for Pittsburgh CLO, the Berliner Domkantorei, activist opera company White Snake Projects, and investigative theater company The Civilians, and she collaborated on an original choral piece, "We Walk Through," that kicked off the Women's March on NYC on January 21, 2017. Sarah's composition of "Mayme's Song," originally written for a star-studded reading of Intimate Apparel at NYC's Signature Theatre, has since been featured in productions across the US and UK.

As a musical director, Sarah has worked on classic and new musicals, plays with music, actor-muso pieces, and concerts in venues including the UK's National Theatre, Berlin's Heimathafen Neukölln, NYC's 54 Below, and universities and schools across the US, UK, and Germany. As a dramaturg, Sarah has supported the development of innovative new plays and musicals ranging from Psittacus Productions' Pulitzer Prize-nominated Cyclops: A Rock Opera to the anarchist song cycle Untuned Ears Hear Nothing But Discord, which Tony Award-winner Lindsay Mendez premiered in Lincoln Center's 2015 American Songbook Series. Sarah's theater criticism and scholarship have been published in American Theatre, L.A. Weekly, Studies in Musical Theatre, and anthologies with Palgrave and Routledge. Her monograph Doing the Time Warp: Strange Temporalities and Musical Theatre was published by Methuen Drama in 2022.

Sarah teaches regularly at HfS Ernst Busch, UdK and Universität Bayreuth, where she was recognized with the "Goldene Feder" Award for her exceptional teaching. She has previously taught at Cours Florent Berlin, CODE University, ArtsEd London, The University of Chester, The Nightingale-Bamford School, The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Roundabout Theatre Company, and UCLA. She is an active member of 1781 Collective and Maestra D-A-CH. She holds a Ph.D. in Theater & Performance Studies from UCLA and a B.A. in Theater Studies/Music and English from Duke University, and she is a dual citizen in Germany and the USA.