Articles
February 2024 — Mel is featured in a Salt Lake Tribune article by Palak Jayswal: Shakespeare, Austen and a mummy: This Utah playwright set to open back-to-back-to-back shows.
February 2024 — Mel’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is about to open in Waynesboro, VA: ‘Pride and Prejudice’ brings love, story of family to The Wayne Theatre stage.
January 2024 — Mel had the chance to write a blog post for Plan-B Theatre about their upcoming production of her (sort of) world premiere, BITTER LEMON.
July 2023 — Mel’s newest work in progress, A FORM OF FLATTERY, was recently named a finalist for the 46th Bay Area Playwrights Festival in Broadway World.
June 2023 — From script to stage: Crew, staff hard at work on 38th Texas Shakespeare Festival season at the Longview News-Journal.
June 2023 — Utah-developed musical 'different than any other' to debut in Pleasant Grove at KSL.com.
June 2023 — 'Relative Space' musical explores themes of generational trauma, mental illness at KUTV 2 Fresh Living.
June 2023 — Relative Space is a musical written, directed, played and sung by women at Fox 13’s The Place.
March 2023 — THE POST OFFICE is featured in a list of one-acts for high school competitions on the New Play Exchange home page.
Febraury 2023 — Previews: The Lift Every Voice Festival at Broadway World.
February 2023 — “These Six Plays Will Debut at American Stage’s Lift Every Voice Festival” at Broadway World.
January 2023 — “Playwright Melissa Leilani Larson Tells All for Pride & Prejudice” at Utah Theatre Bloggers.
January 2023 — “Latter-day Saint Playwright Melissa Larson on her play ‘Pride & Prejudice’ ” at The Deseret News.
June 2022 — “Identity Matters” at Salt Lake City Weekly.
June 2022 — “Utahn’s new play explores family and her Filipina identity” at The Salt Lake Tribune.
June 2022 — “A mixed Filipina filmmaker adrift about her identity in American society” at The Utah Review.
May 2022 — “Welcome to the Radical Middle” at 15 Bytes.
May 2022 — “Being Filipino Enough” at Catalyst Magazine.
May 2022 — “Based on a True-ish Story” at QSaltLake.
August 2020 — Mel is one of 5 female-identifying playwrights chosen as finalists in the inaugural Women’s Voices Play Festival at Mad Cow Theatre. An article previewing the festival ran in the Orlando Sentinel.
April 2020 — Les Roka previews Plan-B’s Radio Slam — including Mel’s short play, “Little Karl” — at the Utah Review.
January 2020 — BYU Studies asked Mel about her experience writing JANE AND EMMA. You can read Mel’s essay “Finding Jane” online.
November 2019 — Mel was among those featured in Peggy Fletcher Stack’s front page article in the Salt Lake Tribune, “Polygamy lives on in LDS temples, spurring agony, angst and a key question: Who will be married to whom in heaven?”
October 2019 — A TV special about SAINTS aired between sessions of General Conference, and Mel is in it for four whole seconds.
August 2019 — Les Roka of The Utah Review previewed THE POST OFFICE, “The Post Office set to premiere in conjunction with Rose Exposed; companion piece to upcoming UN Civil Society Conference in SLC.”
August 2019 — Julie Hirschi of The Salt Lake Tribune attended a rehearsal for THE POST OFFICE and interviewed Mel for her article, “This 1912 play once comforted children facing death. Now Utah students will perform a new adaptation.”
August 2019 — Mel wrote “Renovating the Post Office” for Catalyst Magazine.
July 2019 — Mel’s report on the 2018-2019 season of new work in Utah was published in the Dramatists Guild magazine.
May 2019 — ‘Sweetheart Come’ Concludes Pygmalion’s Season with a Fresh Perspective. A preview of SWEETHEART COME for the Daily Utah Chronicle.
March 2019 — The Association for Mormon Letters presented Mel with the Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters at their annual conference in Berkeley, CA on March 30, 2019. Read the citation here.
March 2019 — Mel was interviewed last year just before the start of filming on JANE AND EMMA. Portions of that interview appeared in an article today at LDS Living celebrating the film’s release on DVD, also today. :)
March 2019 — JANE AND EMMA was the opening night film at the 2019 LDS Film Festival. Mel was invited to participate on a panel discussing the current state of LDS Cinema, and The Daily Herald published an article about the panel.
December 2018 — LDS film theorist Conor Hilton suggests some subjects for future LDS historical films. Mel’s name gets thrown around a bit, and Conor says very nice things about JANE AND EMMA as well.
December 2018 — Acting as the Dramatists Guild Regional Rep for Utah, Mel did a brief write-up of the Great Salt Lake Fringe for the guild’s magazine.
October 2018 — Mariah Proctor did a great write-up on JANE AND EMMA for Meridian Magazine: “ ‘Jane and Emma’ Adds Human Dimension to Our Picture of Church History”.
October 2018 — A surprise announcement was made at the Salt Lake City premiere of JANE AND EMMA: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Foundation and the Bonneville Charitable Foundation would make a matching donation of up to $40,000 based on opening night ticket sales for the film: “ ‘Jane and Emma’ Film Examines Power of Unlikely Friendships”.
October 2018 — Mel got to talk with KSL news specialist Carol Mikita about making JANE AND EMMA, “Women Behind ‘Jane And Emma’ Reflect On Bringing History To Life”.
October 2018 — A great article, “New Latter-day Saint film ‘Jane and Emma’ challenged filmmakers but offers powerful message of true friendship,” from Trent Toone at the Deseret News.
September 2018 — JANE AND EMMA got a really wonderful write-up from Matthew Faraci at InspireBuzz: “Are Mormons Having a Public Conversation Everyone Else Should be Having?”
August 2018 — The Salt Lake Tribune ran an article celebrating JANE AND EMMA receiving the ReFrame Stamp; Mel is quoted a couple of times!
August 2018 — JANE AND EMMA is recognized as gender-balanced and racially diverse by the ReFrame Project, earning the ReFrame Stamp. Read the article in Variety and check out the ReFrame criteria. Films need a minimum score of 4 points to qualify for the ReFrame Stamp; JANE AND EMMA earned 13.
January 2018 — First press mention of the new year! Brian Whitney includes Mel on a list of highly distinguished writers in his piece “Pastoral”.
September 2017 — Mel wrote a brief introduction to her current work-in-progress, MOUNTAIN LAW, to coincide with the announcement of Plan-B’s 2017-18 Script-in-Hand play reading series. MOUNTAIN LAW will have a staged reading as part of the series in March 2018. If you are interested in attending the reading, you can obtain free tickets here.
August 2017 — Michael Austin describes Mel as “one of the true rising stars of Mormon literature” in his blog post “Melissa Leilani Larson: The Theatre of the Uncomfortable.”
July 2017 — Mel wrote a post, “What’s a nice Mormon girl like you doing writing plays like this?”, about her new book THIRD WHEEL on the By Common Consent blog.
July 2017 — Mel’s book of plays, THIRD WHEEL, launched July 24th alongside two other fabulous titles from LDS women: Rachel Hunt Steenblik's MOTHER’S MILK and Mette Harrison's THE BOOK OF LAMAN. BCC Press editor Michael Austin wrote about the launch on the BCC blog, “These Are the Books!”
June 2017 — The Utah Review previewed Plan-B Theatre’s (In)DIVISIBLE.
September 2016 — In honor of her play THE EDIBLE COMPLEX, Mel wrote a post for Plan-B Theatre’s blog, Ten Foods I Like an Awful Lot.
March 2015 —The Utah Review previews Plan-B Theatre’s production of “Pilot Program”.
January 2015 — BYU’s premiere production of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is included as one of the best new plays in Utah in 2014, receiving a mention in the Utah Theatre Bloggers Assocation’s Excellence in 2014 blog post.
December 2014 — PILOT PROGRAM got a shout-out in American Theatre Magazine, where Plan-B Theatre Company is featured in an article: “14 Theatrical Plans to Change the World”.
October 2014 — The Utah Review has a new article highlighting the family values expressed in Plan-B Theatre Company’s current season (including the world premiere of PILOT PROGRAM).
October 2014 — Mel has a post on Plan-B Theatre Company’s blog discussing PILOT PROGRAM.
September 2014 — PRIDE AND PREJUDICE won a 2014 City Weekly Arty award—it’s a staff pick for “Best Modern Jane”. Woohoo!
September 2014 — PILOT PROGRAM got a great shoutout on the Feminist Mormon Housewives blog.
August 2014 — Mel is included in an Utah Theatre Bloggers article about Plan-B Theatre Company’s Playwrights Lab.
March 2014 — Celebrated actor and singer Marvin Payne wrote two charming anecdotes about his experience playing Mr Bennet in BYU’s production of Mel’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE in a recent rehearsal, and then another.
February 2014 — The SUU News ran an article following the Innovative Theatre Company’s production of LITTLE HAPPY SECRETS February 20-23, 2014.
May 2013 — LITTLE HAPPY SECRETS got a shout-out in the Huffington Post article “Gay Mormon Characters in the Arts Step out of the Shadows” (the article is great; skip the comments).