Makena Metz

Makena Metz

Makena Metz is an LA native, INFJ Aquarius who writes for the page, screen, and stage. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in English from Chapman University and was the 2023 winner of the James L. Doti Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Makena is a proud member of DGA, ASCAP, WIA, Maestra, and the SCL. Recently, Makena was selected for the Paramount/MTV Entertainment Group First Time Composers Program...
Makena Metz is an LA native, INFJ Aquarius who writes for the page, screen, and stage. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in English from Chapman University and was the 2023 winner of the James L. Doti Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Makena is a proud member of DGA, ASCAP, WIA, Maestra, and the SCL. Recently, Makena was selected for the Paramount/MTV Entertainment Group First Time Composers Program and was chosen for RespectAbility’s Virtual Entertainment Lab as a TV Writing Fellow. Makena’s work has been published with Wordgathering, PearTree Press, The Clockhouse Review, For Page and Screen, Havik, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Wishbone Words, Strange Horizons, and many others. Find her work on Coverfly, New Play Exchange, or Chillsubs and follow her @ makenametz on Tiktok, IG, FB, Twitter, Threads, and check out makenametz.com

Plays

  • Death Bites
    In this 10-minute play, young disease survivor AMY must decide whether dying is worth living, or if living is worth un-dying when a vampire named DRACULA appears to offer her a painless death or eternal life.
  • Pirate's Weekend: Three Nights in a Harbor
    Three sisters go to Catalina Island for an sisterly getaway, not expecting it to be hosting a Pirate's Weekend event! After disguising herself as a man to get into a contest, Jessica tumbles through trials and tribulations to become Pirate King in this farcical comedy of errors.
  • Double Date
    Four friends on a double date at Disneyland are challenged when one of them unexpectedly dies. After a bathroom attendant discovers the body, the friends must figure out how to not get banned from the theme park forever.
  • The Escape
    Four quirky inmates attempt to escape a prison while juggling their relationships before their window of freedom runs out.
  • Work/Life Balance
    In a different reality in a different society in the future, two young adult roommates grapple with their relationship to working and leisure.
  • Home for the Holidays
    In this show inspired by A Christmas Carol, a family grapples with the grief of losing a beloved grandfather as the holidays begin. As Monica and David prepare their family for celebrating both Hanukkah and Christmas, siblings Veronica and Ben fight with them and cancel the holidays. After the tweens sneak out of the house, their grandfather Jim's ghost appears and kidnaps the kids for a time traveling...
    In this show inspired by A Christmas Carol, a family grapples with the grief of losing a beloved grandfather as the holidays begin. As Monica and David prepare their family for celebrating both Hanukkah and Christmas, siblings Veronica and Ben fight with them and cancel the holidays. After the tweens sneak out of the house, their grandfather Jim's ghost appears and kidnaps the kids for a time traveling reckoning - from the very first night of Hanukkah to their family's future celebrations. To get out of time and go home, the siblings must learn the true meaning of the holidays and traditions their family celebrates.
  • Magic Little Pill
    Four factory workers that package an "instant weight loss pill" in a dystopian future grapple with body image in this full length, science fiction play.
  • Falling Apart While Learning To Cook (A Recipe for an Empty Nest)
    After Susan finds out that her final daughter to leave for college is moving all the way to London, she uses her empty nest nervous breakdown and midlife crisis to quit her job and enroll in culinary school. However, trial by literal fire isn’t what she expected, and Susan has to figure out who she wants to be – as a chef, spouse, and mother.
  • Plastic Ocean
    Isabel Martinez, to the scientific community, or IZZY to her friends, if she had any, has a PHD in marine biology. She’s spent most of her 20s at Cal State Monterey Bay, and finally graduates, excited to get to work cleaning up the ocean. After Izzy fails to get a 50,000-dollar grant, she decides to man her own research vessel, putting forward a hypothesis that she can mutate a fish to eat plastic, which she...
    Isabel Martinez, to the scientific community, or IZZY to her friends, if she had any, has a PHD in marine biology. She’s spent most of her 20s at Cal State Monterey Bay, and finally graduates, excited to get to work cleaning up the ocean. After Izzy fails to get a 50,000-dollar grant, she decides to man her own research vessel, putting forward a hypothesis that she can mutate a fish to eat plastic, which she hopes will get her published and win her awards.

    However, Izzy’s never led a team before, and it doesn’t help that she looks like a 14-year-old or has been in school most of her life. Izzy and her team of research scientists must work together, using the scientific method to journey through science fiction and into science fact. Will Izzy learn to lead and clean up the ocean? Or will her experiment fail?

    This musical is a call to action that we need to clean up our own oceans and become passionate about solving human made ecological problems. It’d a female driven, TYA narrative that will not only entertain, but inform. This musical is family friendly.
  • Heavy Heart
    Ida, a Los Angeles-based burlesque performer, must choose between heart valve replacement surgery and advancement in the burlesque world — losing her partner, and potentially, her life in the process.

    Book by Hannah C. Langley
    Music and Lyrics by Angela Parrish and Makena Metz
  • Slightly Composed
    Olivia, a struggling post grad composer who suffers from chronic panic attacks, clashes with a music producer to rewrite and revise her jingle for a cat food commercial.

    By Makena Metz and Melissa Axel and Jeff Hoepner
  • Blurrred: A Modern Fairy Tale
    Nearby a magical forest, Red Riding Hood fights with her younger sister Blue about selling muffins to wolves. After Red’s wolf related PTSD explodes, Blue storms off into the woods. Realizing her sister is in danger, Red conscripts her Grandma, and a passing through Witch, to go in search of Blue before she’s thrown to the wolves. However, not all is as it seems and Red’s prejudices are exposed as they journey deeper into the forest.
  • A Family Portrait
    In this 15-minute musical, estranged siblings Elizabeth and Todd have to come together after their parent's deaths to find the portrait they left behind. However, not everything is as it seems, and the siblings have to reconcile their feelings about their parents, their spouses, and each other.