PRODUCTIONS & FILMS
FISH
(upcoming - Autumn 2026)
[Play]
Written by Melis Aker
Directed by Tatiana Pandiani
A Co-Production with Signature Theatre Company
In Association with New Light Theater Project
Consulting Producer Noor Theatre Company
2016, London. Seventeen-year-old Karya is navigating her brother’s unresolved disappearance. When her mother’s outrageous theory about his whereabouts starts to gain traction, Karya decides to put it to the test. With her best friend, she devises a twisted online experiment, setting a hook in the darkest corners of the internet. But what begins as a search for answers quickly spirals into something more sinister than she ever expected. By turns sharp, tensely funny, and tender, Fish is a darkly comedic coming-of-age story about grief, girlhood and games that go too far.
HUNDRED FEET TALL
[Musical Play]
Book by: Melis Aker
Music & Lyrics by: Benjamin Scheuer
Directed by: Katy Rudd & Oscar Toeman
Hundred Feet Tall is a new 30-minute musical play designed for 4–7-year-olds exploring how you’re never too small to make a big difference.
When Seedar-the-Seed falls on Bekko Bunny’s head, the two form an unlikely friendship, and together navigate the downs and ups of growing up.
Book by Melis Aker and music and lyrics by Benjamin Scheuer. Adapted from the eponymous children’s book Hundred Feet Tall (Simon & Schuster) written by Benjamin Scheuer and illustrated by Jemima Williams.
Produced & premiered at The Old Vic, London, 2025
BABA IN GRACELAND
[Short film]
Directed by: Marc Atkinson Borrull
Written by: Melis Aker
Produced by: Amy Omar & Adam Kinyon
After the loss of her mother, Naz embarks on a road-trip across America with her alcoholic father to fulfill her parents' long-lost dream: to have her dad join the Ultimate Elvis Contest.
Screened at the Izmir Short Film Festival, 2025
SCRAPS AND THINGS
[Podcast / Radio play]
Written & Scored by: Melis Aker
At a laundromat in Istanbul, a chatty seamstress (Carol Kane) and a guarded, young academic (Melis Aker) discover that they're linked, and haunted, by the myth of the same man.
Written by, starring, and featuring original music by Melis Aker, SCRAPS AND THINGS marks the PoA return of legendary Oscar nominee Carol Kane (The Princess Bride, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” PoA’s Hedgehog Years) and is directed by Neil Pepe, Artistic Director of the Atlantic Theater Company. After the play, host Claudia Catania joins the artistic team to discuss personal legacies and how artists divulge their deepest secrets through their work.
SCRAPS AND THINGS was originally commissioned by Atlantic Theater Company as part of their 2018 Middle Eastern MixFest.
Recorded and produced by Playing On Air, 2020
HOUND DOG
[Play with music]
Written by: Melis Aker
Music & Lyrics by: Melis Aker & The Lazours
A young musician returns from abroad to her hometown of Ankara, Turkey to look after her widowed father. Forced to reckon with the family and community she left behind, an investigation into her grieving parent’s strange pilgrimage to Graceland unravels into a sonic mirage of memory packed with humor, nostalgia and the love we cultivate across generations.
Commissioned, produced & premiered by Ars Nova & PlayCo, 2022