Published Plays
Several of Mel’s plays are published in anthologies that are currently available for sale. Please note: purchasing these books does not grant performance rights. To obtain performance rights, you must contact the writer or licenser and obtain permission before rehearsals begin, and ideally before your season is announced.
JANE AUSTEN’S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
A crisp, theatrical adaptation of one the most beloved novels of all time, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is quickly becoming one of Mel’s most frequently requested and produced plays.
Available for perusal and licensing from Stage Partners (create an account and you can read the whole play on Stage Partners’ website for free).
THE POST OFFICE
A commission adapted from the classic play by Rabindranath Tagore (utilizing the 1914 English translation by Devabrata Mukherjee).
THE POST OFFICE is available for licensing through YouthPLAYS.com. It’s available in both its original one hour length, as well as a 40 - 45 minute cut intended for competition.
THIRD WHEEL:
PECULIAR STORIES OF MORMON WOMEN IN LOVE
LITTLE HAPPY SECRETS and PILOT PROGRAM come together in Mel’s first solo publication. Now available from BCC Press, where editor Michael Austin calls Mel “the defining Mormon writer of our generation.”
In 2022, THIRD WHEEL was included on a list of 100 significant works of Mormon Literature. The list was aggregated by an anonymous panel of LDS readers, librarians and scholars. This is a significant honor, and many of the included works are historic and impressive. See the full list here.
“Each burst of feeling for Brennan that Claire shares with us possesses the electricity that all of us who have ever been in love will recognize. The play's movement toward its climactic scene is gripping and breathless in its intensity.... [The protagonists’] narrations provide privileged access to their thoughts. These interventions create intimacy and interiority. This intimacy is the critical strength of these plays.... Third Wheel shows us characters with pain points that prompt us to discuss their conditions. These dilemmas matter a great deal to the spectrum of conversations currently underway in the LDS community. It's worth reading, staging, and discussing these plays.” —Julie Bowman, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
“Secrets”, part of the collection PIECES OF MIND
Sixteen-year-old Rory is on the cusp of coming out as ace—asexual—a concept her friends don’t even seem to be able to grasp. The good news is that she's been able to confide in her grandmother. The bad news is that Rory’s lola never remembers; she has dementia—often mistaking Rory for her mother, and her care facility for her house back in the Philippines. Will Rory be able to convince the people she loves to recognize her for who she really is?
https://www.youthplays.com/play/secrets-by-melissa-leilani-larson-713&ref=search.php%3Fquicksearchbox%3DMelissa%2BLeilani%2BLarson
About the collection:
It's not like being a teenager was ever easy—or easy to talk about—but there's no arguing that the last few years have been more challenging than ever. Pieces of Mind, a collection of ten plays on mental-health themes commissioned by Orlando Family Stage and the University of Central Florida, cracks open the window to a world of depressed superheroes, runaway phones, oh so many spiders and (a whole lot) more—in the hope of letting a little light in.
SAINTS ON STAGE
MARTYRS’ CROSSING is included in a necessary collection of modern LDS drama alongside the work of Thomas Rogers, Margaret Blair Young, Tim Slover, and Eric Samuelsen.
OUT OF THE MOUNT: 19 FROM NEW PLAY PROJECT
LITTLE HAPPY SECRETS is here, as well as Mel's 5-minute play, “A Burning in the Bosom,” an exploration of personal revelation in an LDS sacrament meeting.