Meet Mel

MELISSA LEILANI LARSON (she/her) is a mixed race Filipino writer based in Salt Lake City. Her newest play, A FORM OF FLATTERY, is an honorable mention finalist for the 46th Bay Area Playwrights Festival and a finalist for Portland Center Stage’s JAW festival.

Mel’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE has entertained sold-out houses across the country and is available for perusal and licensing through Stage Partners.

She wrote the book for the new musical RELATIVE SPACE, featuring songs by rising pop sensation Kjersti Long. RELATIVE SPACE premiered at the Creekside Theatre Fest in 2023 and is being prepared for an concert staging in Fall 2024.

Mel’s adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s THE POST OFFICE was honored with the American Alliance for Theatre & Education Distinguished Play award and is being performed by middle and high schools nation-wide. It’s available for licensing through YouthPLAYS.

Upcoming productions include BITTER LEMON at Plan-B Theatre (originally commissioned by Creekside Theatre Fest); PRIDE AND PREJUDICE at the Grand Theatre (May 2024) and Jane Austen’s PERSUASION at Snow College (October 2024).

MESTIZA, OR MIXED was presented as part of American Stage’s Lift Every Voice festival in 2023. The play was commissioned for Plan-B Theatre Company, where it received its world premiere in June 2022.

Other produced plays include: SWEETHEART COME, PILOT PROGRAM, THE EDIBLE COMPLEX (Plan-B Theatre commission), LITTLE HAPPY SECRETS, MARTYRS’ CROSSING, A FLICKERING, STANDING STILL STANDING, LADY IN WAITING and collaborating on the musical THE WEAVER OF RAVELOE with composer/lyricist Erica Glenn (adapted from George Eliot’s Silas Marner).

In 2017, Mel was commissioned by Utah Valley University to adapt Kelly Barnhill's Newbery Medal-winning THE GIRL WHO DRANK THE MOON.* The production, staged in 2019, enjoyed a sold-out run.

Films include JANE AND EMMA (currently available on Blu-ray and streaming on Amazon Prime), FREETOWN (winner of the Ghana Movie Award for Best Screenplay and the Utah Film Award for Best Picture), and the short films “Patience” and “Iscariot.”

In 2018, at the age of 42, Mel became the youngest writer ever presented with the Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters for her body of work. She is the only woman to receive more than one Association for Mormon Letters Drama Award and is one of only two playwrights to win four (the other is Tim Slover).

Other honors include: being named an O’Neill National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist; runner-up in the first-ever Women’s Voices New Play Festival at Mad Cow Theatre; Trustus Playwrights Festival top five finalist; the IRAM Best New Play award; two Salt Lake City Weekly Best of Utah Arts Awards; and the Mayhew Playwriting Award. She has also won the Lewis National Playwriting Contest for Women and the LDS Film Festival Screenwriting Contest.

Mel holds a BA in English from BYU and an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and served the Utah region for several years as Ambassador and then as Regional Rep. She was a 2018 Art Access Mentor. She is a member of Plan-B Theatre’s Lab for new plays, the Playwrights Center of Minneapolis, and Honor Roll!, an advocacy group for female-identifying playwrights over 40. Mel currently serves on the Theatre Committee for the Harrington Center for the Arts.

Mel enjoys travel, little known history, melty cheese, puzzles, nice paper and nicer pens.

See PDF of Mel's résumé.

Sample Mel’s work on the New Play Exchange.

Visit Mel on Wikipedia, IMDB, or Mapping Literary Utah.

Purchase Mel’s book Third Wheel: Peculiar Stories of Mormon Women in Love (including LITTLE HAPPY SECRETS and PILOT PROGRAM) from BCC Press.

*Melissa Leilani Larson’s stage adaptation of Kelly Barnhill’s THE GIRL WHO DRANK THE MOON was produced at UVU in 2019 with special permission from Fox Animation. As per that agreement, is not available for licensing at this time.