Born and raised in Park City, Utah, MaryEllen McGinnis has been performing on stage since she was 7 years old. She attended Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts (SLSPA) for high school where she began honing her love of theater into a professional career. She trained extensively in Jazz dance as well as Jazz vocals alongside being in the actors conservatory at SLSPA.

She relocated to Ashland, Oregon for University and received her BFA in theater from Southern Oregon University (SOU) in December 2024. Notably she was assistant director and assistant choreographer for Xanadu at SOU where she did all the rollerskate choreography for the show. She also assistant directed Waitress at the Oregon Cabaret theater and was a producer for the 2024 Oregon Fringe Festival. 

MaryEllen also has a passion for music specifically in the songwriter realm. She’s received training at the Rocky Mountain Song School each summer for the past 6 years where she learned from world class songwriters and folk musicians. She wrote the music for two shows with the Zanni Nation Commedia group in Ashland and hopes to record and release music in the near future.