Hi, I’m Eli.

Speaker, Solo-Performance Artist & Founder of The Uplift Center & Drunk Yoga®

I created The Uplift Center to make it easy to build belonging - (for yourself and your people) - through playful, human-centered live experiences.

It started with Drunk Yoga®. In 2017, I married my background in theater (BFA, NYU Tisch) with a decade of teaching yoga to create something that broke all the rules: yoga as a drinking game. It went viral. But what I discovered along the way was bigger than the party — I'd stumbled onto a methodology for sparking real connection through play.

I'd also road-tested it on myself. After a rough landing back in NYC at 25 (broke, injured, lost), I strategized my way back to wellness by prioritizing belonging: one coffee date a week with someone I admired, a yoga studio where I wanted to be surrounded by the people, one new fun thing every week. It worked. I repeated the same playbook when I moved upstate one day before lockdown in 2020 — started a storytelling open mic, brought my people to me, rebuilt from scratch.

Why do I care so much about social wellness strategies? Great question (thanks for asking!) I want to live in a world where people dig into hard conversations instead of running from conflict. Where we lead with curiosity instead of fear. Where we prioritize community over individualism so that we may get over ourselves and actually engage with what matters: climate, justice, each other (and other wonderful pursuits!). That world doesn't just happen; it's built by people who know how to belong to one another.

That strategy became the P.L.A.Y. Method. Now I teach it through The Uplift Center to help leaders, organizations, and individuals build social wellness that actually sticks.

When I'm not delivering talks or curating experiences, you can find me working on my one-woman shows, hiking the Hudson Valley, surfing in Costa Rica, or geeking out on astrology.