Melis Aker

Melis Aker is a London-based writer, actor and musician originally from Turkey, working across theatre, musical theatre, film and audio between London and New York. Named a “Woman to Watch” by the Broadway Women’s Fund, she is a graduate of King’s College London, Columbia University, RADA and Tufts University. Her work has been developed and produced by institutions including Ars Nova, Signature Theatre Company, New York Theatre Workshop, Sundance, The Old Vic, the Park Theatre, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Her breakout play, FIELD, AWAKENING, was developed at venues including the Finborough Theatre and Roundabout Theatre, and received recognition from Sundance and The Kilroy’s List, despite its planned UK premiere being disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Since 2022, Melis has been a LaunchPad Resident Writer at Signature Theatre Company and is also one of Theatre503’s 503Five writers, with commissions from both organisations. Her play FISH, developed with Signature Theatre Company and WP Theater, will receive its Off-Broadway premiere in autumn 2026.

Alongside her dramatic writing, Melis has built a significant body of work in musical theatre. Her play HOUND DOG, co-produced by Ars Nova and The Play Company, premiered Off-Broadway in 2022 and was named one of Time Out New York’s “30 Best Shows to See Off-Broadway.” Her bilingual musical AZUL co-written and created alongside Tatiana Pandiani and Jacinta Clusellas was developed over several years through residencies and workshops at New York Theatre Workshop, Goodspeed Musicals and the Eugene O’Neill National Musical Theatre Conference, later receiving both the 2022 NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre Award and the 2024 Jonathan Larson Award. In 2025, her musical play HUNDRED FEET TALL, based on the eponymous book with music by Benjamin Scheuer and direction by Katy Rudd and Oscar Toeman, was produced at The Old Vic. She is also currently developing DUNG BEETLE’S DELI, a new musical play based on the eponymous story, with Benjamin Scheuer and Simon Scheuer at Little Angel Theatre.

Melis was previously a member of Ars Nova’s Play Group, a New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellow, and an alumnus of Atlantic Theatre Company’s Middle Eastern MixFest. Her work has been recognised repeatedly by Sundance, where DRAGONFLIES was a finalist for the Sundance Theatre Lab and FIELD, AWAKENING was named a semi-finalist. In 2021, she received a Sundance Interdisciplinary Program Grant supporting the development of her short film BABA IN GRACELAND, in which she also appeared as an actor.

Alongside her theatre work, Melis writes for screen and audio, with projects developed with Skybound Entertainment, Playing On Air, Morgan Freeman’s Revelations Entertainment and Crazy Legs Features, for whom she is currently adapting Mayte Garcia’s memoir THE MOST BEAUTIFUL: MY LIFE WITH PRINCE for film. Her screenplay ARI [BEE] was selected by the Cannes Film Festival’s Maison des Scénaristes scheme, the Berlinale marketplace and the American Cinematheque’s Proof of Concept Festival, while earlier television work has been developed through IFP Week and Orchard Project’s Episodic Lab. She is also currently developing a game project with Sinan Eczacıbaşı of Curious Gremlin.

Melis is working on her debut novel through her PhD at King’s College London. 

She is represented in the US by CAA and Curate Management.