WRITING
HIGHLIGHTS / OVERVIEW
S T A G E
Fish
[Play: Full-length]
Two teenagers in London embark on a mission to catfish and extort money from ISIS, until things— you guessed it— go terribly wrong. Fish is a comedic coming-of-age story about the lengths to which you could go for a bloody bikini, boyfriend, and bff.
Development:
Workshop at the Signature Theatre Company
Commissioned by the Signature Theatre Company*
Indigo Dreams
[Play: Full-length]
In the hills of Turkey, three carpet-weaving women are caught between wanting to salvage their dying industry, and an offer to modernise that could have dangerous consequences. Across the globe, a “Westernised” Turk with a social start-up straddles the gap between uplifting carpet-weavers’ rights, and confronting her own hypocrisies. Indigo Dreams is about the fetishisation of tradition in the face of globalisation, following two colliding worlds that grapple with preservation vs. progress, the complicity of good intentions, and the rituals that keep them alive.
Development:
Workshopped at the Signature Theatre Company*
Reading at the Magic Theatre*
AZUL
[Musical: Full-length]
Co-created by: Tatiana Pandiani, Melis Aker & Jacinta Clusellas
Book by: Melis Aker & Tatiana Pandiani
Music by: Jacinta Clusellas
Lyrics by: Jacinta Clusellas, Tatiana Pandiani, and Melis Aker
Please see official website for more details.
Development:
Recipient of the NYC Women’s Fund
Workshopped at the Eugene O’Neill Center
NAMT Festival (NY, 2021)*
The O’Neill’s NMTC (Connecticut, 2020)*
Tofte Lake residency retreat (Minnesota, 2019)*
BRICLab residency: workshop production directed by Tatiana Pandiani (NY, 2017)*
Field, Awakening
[Play: Full-length]
After ten years of self-imposed estrangement from her country, Rana reunites with three of her old friends on a soccer field in Istanbul on 15 July 2016 (the eve of the attempted coup d'etat in Turkey), only to realize what it was that really drove them apart. Spanning across the surreal events of one evening, Field, Awakening is an anti-homecoming: a tale of a stranger in a strange land, searching in vain for a home that is lost in a landscape of fleeting familiarity and heightened political surveillance.
*Field, Awakening is part of a series of plays called the “coup / mama cycle,“ where each story forms a fragment of the tapestry of a larger world (connected thematically or by a recurring character or motif) exploring the definition of motherhood at a national, political and personal level, particularly revolving around or within the tumultuous coup culture of Turkey.
Acknowledgements:
The Kilroy’s List (2019)*
Playwrights Realm finalist (2019)
Columbia@Roundabout rewarded finalist (NY, 2019)*
Sundance Lab final-round (Utah, 2018)
Berkeley Rep Ground Floor final-round (San Francisco, 2018)
Van Lier New Voices fellowship final-round (NY, 2017)
Development:
Finborough Theatre: reading directed by Rory McGregor (London, 2019)*
Golden Thread Productions: reading directed by Evren Odcikin (San Francisco, 2018)*
Corkscrew Theatre Festival: workshop production directed by Tatiana Pandiani (NY, 2018)*
Signature Theatre New Plays Festival: workshop production directed by Tatiana Pandiani
(NY, 2018)*
Scraps and Things
[Play: One-act]
Scraps and Things sits with two women in an imaginary laundromat in Istanbul, Turkey, who try to come to terms with items of clothing as they slowly discover that their lives are intertwined by an unforgiving circumstance.
Production History:
Aired on an episode of Playing On Air (starring Carol Kane) directed by Neil Pepe (NY, 2020)*
Development:
Atlantic Theatre Co. commission for Middle Eastern Mixfest: reading directed by Tracy Francis (NY, 2018)*
Murmurs
[Play: Full-length]
Development:
Commissioned by Theatre503*
Hound Dog
[Play with music: Full-length]
Play: Melis Aker
Music & Lyrics: Melis Aker & The Lazours
Development & Production History:
Commissioned and produced by Ars Nova
OPET Diaries
[Play: Full-length]
Acknowldgements:
Semi-finalist for the Page73 Playwriting Fellowship (2022)
Hundred Feet Tall
[Musical adaptation: One-act/family]
Based on the eponymous children’s book by Benjamin Scheuer & Jemima Williams
Book by: Melis Aker
Music and Lyrics by: Benjamin Scheuer
Development:
Workshop at the Old Vic Theatre*
Developed at the Goodspeed Grove*
Mother and the Beast
(previously called When My Mama was a Hittite)
[Play: Full-length]
While Ajda, a middle-aged Turkish mother and her daughter Nur, a wannabe actor try to come to terms with their political exile in London working as waitresses in a pseudo-Middle Eastern fast-food restaurant, the emergence of Nur’s black sheep brother Cem starts to unearth dark secrets as they struggle to make ends meet. When my Mama was a Hittite explores the myth of self-actualization in the face of survival, and the desire to transcend victimhood and an immigrant identity.
*Mother and the Beast is part of a series of plays called the “coup / mama cycle,“ where each story forms a fragment of the tapestry of a larger world (connected thematically or by a recurring character or motif) exploring the definition of motherhood at a national, political and personal level, particularly revolving around or within the tumultuous coup culture of Turkey.
Acknowledgements:
Columbia@Roundabout rewarded finalist (NY, 2018)*
Development:
Magic Theatre: Virgin Play Festival reading directed by Evren Odcikin (San Francisco, 2020)*
Park Theatre: readings directed by Tatiana Pandiani (London, 2019)*
NYTW: reading directed by Kareem Fahmy (NY, 2018)*
Gilded Isle
[Play: Full-length]
Gilded Isle tells the story of Lerzan Hanim and her three granddaughters as she struggles to decide what to do with her crumbling property in the face of the Syrian refugee crisis and growing national divide. Set on the Prince Islands off the coast of Istanbul Turkey, matters are complicated when the mayor designates part of Lerzan Hanim’s clementine garden to construct a refugee camp. Loosely inspired by, and a synthesis of Shakespeare's King Lear and Orhan Pamuk's Silent House, Gilded Isle explores the difficulties and implications of taking, breaking, and making space, and is a meditation on the meaning of roots against a backdrop of uncertainty and change.
*Gilded Isle is part of a series of plays called the "synthesis cycle," where a canonically Western text is paired with another from Turkey (and occasionally from the Anatolian/Mesopotamian region), to create an original narrative. The goal with this original narrative is to explore the echoes and bridge the gap between the two source-texts and cultures.
Development:
NYTW: reading directed by Rory McGregor (NY, 2019)*
Manar
[Play: Full-length]
Manar depicts the explosive fallout of a racially segregated community that must grieve the unexpected disappearance of a white teenage boy. When ISIS publishes an execution video online, A Mother is convinced, through the eyes of the veiled executioner, that she recognizes her missing son. Manar is a memory play following individuals trapped in the trenches of mourning, searching for tangible resolution in an age of digital empathy. Through repetition, fragmentation, and fabrication, Manar interlaces scenes between A Mother and A Father with A Son's Syrian high school friend, Najla, her brother Ali, and a neighborhood deli owner Gunner Hassan, to explore the crux of a dysfunctional marriage in light of paranoia, grief, and cultural segregation.
Acknowledgements:
Columbia@Roundabout rewarded finalist (NY, 2017)*
Theatre503 Playwriting Award semifinalist (London, 2016)*
Development:
New Group/New Voices: reading directed by Whitney White (NY, 2018)*
Golden Thread Productions’ ReOrient Festival: workshop production directed by Erin Gilley
(San Francisco, 2017)*LaMaMa ETC: reading directed by Isabelle Kettle (NY, 2017)*
LPAC’s Rough Draft Festival: workshop production directed by Isabelle Kettle (NY, 2017)*
Dragonflies
[Play: Full-length]
Feeling as though she was born to replace her missing brother, 12-year-old, Turkish-American Lale struggles to feel comfortable under her own skin after years of neglect from her parents. When she discovers her mother’s dark conspiracy concerning her brother’s whereabouts, Lale devises a plan that shakes the core of their family identity. Dragonflies is a coming-of-age story about alienation, the lengths to which a child will go to fix her broken parents, and find a way to see herself through the noise.
Acknowledgements:
Sundance Lab final-round (Utah, 2019)
Dandelions
[Play: Full-length]
330 Pegasus:
A Love Letter
[Play: Full-length]
Avery and his Iranian partner Parastoo struggle with the looming figure of their sperm donor Reza, who is somehow mysteriously connected to two pilots in flight. 330 Pegasus: A Love Letter explores what it means to have cultural and genetic ownership over one's heritage, identity, and body in a world defined by subtle mythology, uncanny mishaps, silent landlords, love letters, and other such bad omens.
Acknowledgements:
Jerome NY Fellowship final-round (NY, 2017)
Development:
Noor Theatre’s Highlight series: reading directed by Kim Kerfoot (NY, 2017)*
F I L M
ARI [“BEE”]
[Screenplay: Feature film]
Suspecting that her seemingly promiscuous upstairs neighbor might be the cause of her father’s sudden disappearance, a reclusive 10-year old girl goes on a revenge journey that results in her finding unlikely friends. Set in Istanbul, Turkey, ARI (BEE) is a semi-surreal coming-of-age story that explores femaleness in the face of deep communal prejudice, resentment and rage.
Acknowledgements:
Cannes Film Festival production meetings at the Cannes script market via Maison des Scenaristes (Cannes, 2019)*
Baba in Graceland
[Screenplay: Short film]
Director: Marc Atkinson Borrull
Writer: Melis Aker
Producers: Amy Omar & Adam Kinyon
Executive Producers: Jefferson White, Jack Berrill, Melis Aker, Marc Atkinson Borrull
Cast: Laith Nakli, Melis Aker, Nicole Ansari-Cox, Michael John Improta, Tom Forgione, Tala Siman
After the loss of her mother, Naz embarks on a road-trip across America with her alcoholic father to fulfil her parents' long-lost dream: to have her dad join the Ultimate Elvis Contest. Baba in Graceland is about forgiveness, the many costumes of grief, and finding solace in unexpected places.
S E R I A L
NIGHT / SHIFT
[Screenplay: Audio series]
Set in a near-future, sleepy suburb of New Mexico, NIGHT/SHIFT is a serial audio thriller that follows two strangers, a political dissident and tech engineer, who get wrapped up in a major conspiracy around a medical product… A new hearing aid that’s got older patients with dementia, well... hearing things. Presented in a collage of WhatsApp voice memos, generative AI/Deepfake audio, overheard and recorded conversations, NIGHT/SHIFT is a meditation on exile, the search for truth and justice, and finding your own voice through the noise.
Development:
In development with Skybound Entertainment*
Two North London teenagers embark on a mission to catfish and extort money from ISIS, until their deceptive game spirals out of control. They find themselves entangled in both a hilarious and dangerous web of consequences, forcing them to confront the threats they thought they could outsmart.
BAIT
[Screenplay: TV series]
THE TAPE
(previously called MANAR)
[Screenplay: TV series]
THE TAPE is an 8-part crime-drama miniseries set in 2014, exploring the ripple effects of a missing white boy on the tightly-knit and diverse community of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. No one believes his mother when she starts to suspect that he is the executioner in an ISIS video ... except for her son’s Syrian friend Najla, who becomes the anchor for each member of the community, and an entryway into an even darker secret.
… Think “Broadchurch” meets “The Night Of.”
Acknowledgements:
Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP)’s IFP Week (NY, 2019)*
Trans Atlantic Partners: pitched by producer Esra Saydam (Berlin, 2019)*
Development:
Orchard Project’s Episodic Lab (NY, 2019)*
DIRTY LAUNDRY
[Screenplay: TV series]
Co-created by: Melis Aker & Tatiana Pandiani
DIRTY LAUNDRY is a half-hour dramedy set in Brooklyn, following a reckless Turkish law student, and a no-bullshit Puerto-Rican laundromat owner who together run an underground business of female vigilantes defending immigrant women. As they take matters into their own hands, the line between justice and revenge blurs, steering them towards unorthodox decisions.
P R O S E
In Graceland (working title)
[Novel: Literary Fiction]
* credited on Resumé.
