Elspeth Nina Tilley is an Australian playwright, actor and academic and is a full professor at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand.

Tilley earned a BA(Hons) in 1996 at the University of Queensland with a thesis called More than one and solo: subjectivity in contemporary Australian and Canadian monodrama, which she followed with a PhD in drama and literature in 2007.^[1] Her doctoral thesis, also at Queensland, was titled White vanishing: a settler Australian hegemonic textual strategy, 1789-2006.^[2][3] After this Tilley moved to Massey University, where she was promoted to full professor in 2023.^[4]

Tilley's research covers theatre, performance, literature, media and public communication, examining ethics and social justice.^[5] She has published four books, including White Vanishing and Creative Activism: Research, Pedagogy and Practice.^[4]

Tilley's plays have been published in Canada, New Zealand, the USA and the UK, produced around the world. Her plays have featured in a variety of festivals including the British Theatre Challenge, Short + Sweet, Pint Sized Plays NZ, Climate Change Theatre Action, Stage-It 2 and have been translated into French, Italian, and Belizean Creole.^[4][2]

Tilley has won the British Theatre Challenge three times, in 2017, 2018 and 2019.^[6] Tilley was an official playwright for Climate Change Theatre Action in 2015, 2017, and 2019.^[6] She has also been awarded the Playwrights’ Association of New Zealand Outstanding Achievement Award (2018),^[7] three teaching excellence awards, a Peking University Research Fellowship and a Prime Minister’s Group Scholarship to Latin America.^[4]

• Waiting for Go, 2017 (short play, winner of British Theatre Challenge in 2017)
• Bunnies & Wolves, 2018 (short play, winner of British Theatre Challenge in 2018)
• Fabio the Great, 2019 (short play, winner of British Theatre Challenge in 2019 and awarded ‘Best Play’ by audience vote at Pint Sized Plays New Zealand, 2019)
• World, 2019 (finalist in Fratti-Newman Political Play Contest at Castillo Theatre in New York; equal first place in 2019 Playwrights’ Association of New Zealand Long Play Contest)
• Te Hā Tangata: The breath of the people (verbatim play about houseless people)

• Elspeth Tilley (2023) Applied theatre as transdisciplinary research: JustUs and the quest for second-order change, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, DOI: 10.1080/13569783.2023.2184682
• Elspeth Tilley (December 2005). "The Ethics Pyramid: Making Ethics Unavoidable in the Public Relations Process". Journal of Mass Media Ethics. 20 (4): 305–320. doi:10.1207/S15327728JMME2004_6. ISSN 0890-0523. Wikidata Q114988782.
• Elspeth Tilley; John Cokley. "Deconstructing the Discourse of Citizen Journalism: Who Says What and Why It Matters". Pacific Journalism Review. 14 (1): 94–114. ISSN 1023-9499. Wikidata Q117474307.
• James Hollings; Alan Samson; Elspeth Tilley; Geoff Lealand (2007). "The big NZ journalism survey: underpaid, under-trained, under-resourced, unsure about the future-but still idealistic". Pacific Journalism Review. 13 (2): 175–197. ISSN 1023-9499. Wikidata Q117474308.

• Tilley's articles at The Conversation