Melanie Payne

Santa's elves plot revolt when Santa decides to hire from outside of the elf community. A Shakespeare-quoting elf helps them see the error of their ways and reclaim their elf-manity.

The true story of a late 18th century an enslaved woman sues her owner for her freedom. Her lawsuit led was a landmark case in the abolishment of slavery in Massachusetts.

The true story told in the first-person by Elizabeth Freeman, a formerly enslaved person who sued for her freedom in 18th century Massachusetts.

A police officer encounters a homeless woman camping behind a convenience store -- a violation of Florida law.

Two best friends, one Black and one White, discover they are distantly related through enslavement. Rather than bringing them closer together it temporarily causes a rift in the friendship. The relationship begins to repair but when the teenage children of the women become involved it exposes biases that neither woman can deny – permanently and irreparably damaging their decades-long friendship.

A woman recounts her first brush with racism as a child in the 1960s.

A child comes home with a stray dog.

When best friends fall out over a Scrabble game, their husbands explain why they shouldn’t be friends anymore – and how maybe, they never were.

Charlotte and her brother Chris are planning to give their elderly dad a birthday party. But Charlotte is shocked when her father asks her to invite a former neighbor with whom he has been carrying on a decades-old affair. Things get really complicated when she finds out that more than 50 years earlier, her father and the neighbor had a child who was Chris' high school sweetheart Vivian. The romance was cut short when Chris found out the truth that they were half-siblings, something Vivian too, will soon discover.

In this ten minute play, a sister fights with her brother's wife over who will control his life - and death.

Jackie and Evelyn’s father has died and the two must agree on his final arrangements. The two have never agreed on anything in their lives. When they argue over what is to be done they go to their “Uncle” Reuben, an attorney and life-long friend of their father’s, to mediate. Inexplicably, he sides with Evelyn but he has an ulterior motive.

Dan Brown is in a rut. He’s got a new job, a new baby, a teenage daughter and a new wife who’s just over half his age. Then when it looks as if his life is turning around, he forgets his infant in the back seat of his car. "Routine" serves as a reminder of how we can getting caught up in technology and our fast-paced, deadline-driven world can make you lose sight of what's important. It questions whether people should be punished for mistakes. Or is accidentally killing someone you love punishment enough?

In 1924 Leonard Kip Rhinelander, heir to a family fortune and ancient legacy, married Alice Beatrice Jones, a former lady’s maid. There had been several instances of rich men marrying beneath their status and education and if that was all that could have been found objectionable, the marriage might have survived.

But Alice had a secret. Although her skin was white and her dark hair fell in soft waves, Alice was “colored.” Her father, an immigrant and taxi driver, was black.

When the newspapers broke the story of Alice’s racial heritage, the powerful Rhinelander family hatched a plan to return Leonard to the fold, cut all ties with his wife and show the world Leonard was an unwitting victim. Leonard would sue for annulment claiming that Alice had deceived him. He claimed to have married her not knowing she was, in the parlance of the times, a Negro.

“True Colors” explores the still relevant issues of race, the importance of money and the vulnerability of romance, by retelling a nearly 100-year-old true story. The play is adapted from the trial transcript and more than 100 newspaper accounts.

Primarily a courtroom drama, ‘True Colors” uses flashback scenes to show the audience how the romance developed and why it couldn’t survive. As the play progresses, it becomes clear that one of these lovers isn’t telling the truth. But Alice is a black woman going up against a white man, with her fate in the hands of an all-white, all-male jury. Her attorney decides the only way Alice can win her case is to use racism in her favor, pulling off what is arguably history’s most bizarre and humiliating legal maneuver.

In this contemporary retelling of the Nativity, Jose and Maria, Mexican immigrants, find shelter in a storage unit in Florida on Christmas Eve.

An older woman and her elderly father spar over her plans to throw him a 90th birthday party.