Ellen Hofmann, born in Berlin, studied fashion and theatre design in Berlin and London. From 1993 to 1996 she was a resident costume assistant at the Volksbühne-am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin. From 1996 to 1998, a video and costume collaboration took her to the Wooster Group in New York City. She then worked as costume director and costume designer at the Volksbühne in Berlin. Since 2004, she has been working as a freelance costume designer with the directors Dimiter Gotscheff, Michael Talke, Sebastian Baumgarten, Roger Vontobel, Johanna Wehner and Alia Luque. A long-standing collaboration with Christian Friedel and his band has resulted in the founding of the "Woods of Birnam Company" in 2023. Her costume designs have been seen in Berlin (Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Deutsches Theater, Maxim-Gorki Theater, Komische Oper, Palast der Republik), at the Semperoper Dresden, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Oper Hannover, Thalia Theater Hamburg, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Burgtheater Wien, Bühnen Bern, Schauspiel Frankfurt, Staatsschauspiel Dortmund, Mannheim Opera and at the Nibelungen Festival in Worms. From the winter semester of 2023, she will hold a visiting professorship at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies at the University of Giessen. Leben des Galilei is her first collaboration with Nicolas Stemann.