Ella Boureau was born in New York City, raised in the same Pennsylvania stone barn as her mother, and has roots in coastal villages in France and Algeria. Upon reaching the age of consent she immediately returned to New York City, allegedly to study poetry at The New School, but secretly to people-watch and be gay. Ella writes about sex, mediterranean myths, and female dirtbaggery. She is interested in rage and grief: when they are funny, when they are scary, when they are heartbreaking, and when they just get so twisted up that they break into something else entirely. Her plays include: FUCKING AJAX!: An Appalachian Gay Soul Suicide Musical (Zarkower Award for First Year Playwriting, Dramatist Guild Fellow Semi-finalist); CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS, CLAMS (O'Neill Playwriting Conference semi-finalist); and Helps to Hate You a Little: a Lovestory (Cloud City, Dixon Place, Fresh Fruit Festival @The Wild Project). She has an MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College.

She has taught at Barnard College, San Francisco School for the Arts, The French Institute Alliance Française, the Beekman School, The Manhattan Theatre Club, and Broadway Arts Education.

Ella has been the French language voice of Caillou since 2016, and has worked with Literary Safari and Pepsqually VO.