EBKM

EBKM are an award winning partnership of theatre makers from Aotearoa-New Zealand who make socially minded, formally innovative, contemporary performance

Eleanor Bishop & Karin McCracken (EBKM) are an award winning partnership of theatre makers who have been making work together since 2017. They make high quality, socially minded, formally innovative contemporary theatre for a range of audiences in New Zealand and abroad, and they develop their work through extensive research and in consultation with audiences, social agencies and academics, as well as long-term collaboration with designers and performers. 

Eleanor Bishop is a director and writer and Karin McCracken is a writer and performer. Their works include Heartbreak Hotel, Gravity & Grace, and Yes Yes Yes, and have toured across Aotearoa, as well as Australia, Canada, the USA, Serbia, Iceland, Germany and the UK. Yes Yes Yes has been translated and licensed by companies in Wales and Catalonia, with forthcoming translations from Brazil and Hungary.

Eleanor and Karin were the recipients of the prestigious Bruce Mason Playwriting Award in 2022 for their body of work, the first time in the award's 40 year history that it was awarded to a creative partnership. 

In 2024, their large-scale adaptation Gravity & Grace won Production of the Year at the Wellington Theatre Awards, and received a Gold award at the Designers Institute of New Zealand Best Awards. In 2025, EBKM will present Heartbreak Hotel and Yes Yes Yes in North America, Australia, and the UK.


  • Co-Artistic Director

    Karin McCracken is a writer and performer based in Pōneke. She is one half of EBKM, and the co-creator of Gravity & Grace, Heartbreak Hotel, Yes Yes Yes, Body Double and Jane Doe. Her other work includes Standard Acts (Melbourne Tour-Ready Award, NZ Fringe 2021, Best Production Design, Best Live Art: Auckland Fringe 2021), and It’s A Trial! (Most Original Production: WTA 2016). She works regularly with theatre company Binge Culture, co-creating and performing in Big Data, Spy Game and Werewolf , which toured nationally in 2022. Karin previously practised as a lawyer, and is a specialist sexual violence prevention educator.


  • Co-Artistic Director

    Eleanor Bishop is a director and writer working across theatre, film & opera. She is one half of EBKM, and the co-creator of Gravity & Grace, Heartbreak Hotel, Yes Yes Yes, Body Double and Jane Doe. She was a Friedlander Foundation Associate Artist for NZ Opera and a member of Jane Campion’s pop up film intensive “A Wave in the Ocean”. She holds an MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh , PA, USA where she studied as a John Wells Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar. She is a former associate director for New York based multimedia theatre company The Builders Association/Marianne Weems.