Ella Birmingham Hassan is a freelance director who was born in Republic of Panama and grew up in a province populated mostly by West Indians. She came to the US to study and attended Bluffton College, Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Christian Theological Seminary, and Western Illinois University, always finding ways to engage in different aspects of theatre. During her time as a professor at Western Illinois University, Egla Hassan wrote several plays for a touring children’s theatre, supervised the Humanities curriculum, and was head of the MFA program in directing. Since retiring, she has served as guest director at several universities.
