MEET KELLI
Kelli is a Manhattan-based writer and director whose dreams of filmmaking began in her hometown Hollywood Video store. Raised with the workhorse mentality of the midwest and artistically trained in New York University's BFA filmmaking program, she brings a meditative devotion to all projects; anything she has a hand in, she has her heart in, too. Outside of her developed screenplays, she is also a published essayist for Transcending Tedium: Boredom, Art, and Evolution (2022), a piece which tracks the origins of the human impulse to create. She interrogated the mind of the artist once again in her most recent short film, Piromane (2023).
After writing and directing Bloody Passion (2022), her first independent short film, she endeavored into directing for the stage with Dog Birthdays (Broke People Play Festival, 2023). Her love of theater began with an affinity for costume design, and she lives by the philosophy that there's nothing more intimate or revelatory than picking out a character's shoes. Her costume design credits include lead designer for Jane Eyre (Playwrights Horizons Theater School, 2022) and King Lear (Shakespeare in the Square, 2023), as well as assistant designer for Cabaret (Tisch New Theater, 2023). In her free time, you can find her reading plays, researching acting techniques, or studying the mechanics of her favorite films.
