Melissa Li (she/her) is a composer, lyricist, performer, and writer based in NYC and Montreal. She is a recipient of the ASCAP Harold Adamson Lyric Award, Kleban Prize, Jonathan Larson Award, a Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, a Lincoln Center Theater Writer-in-Residence, a 2019 Musical Theatre Factory MAKER, a MacDowell Fellow, a Company One Pao Arts Fellow, and a former Queer|Art|Mentorship Fellow. Selected works include Interstate (New York Musical Festival, Winner “Outstanding Lyrics”), MISS STEP (5th Avenue Theatre commission), Cancelled (Keen Company), Again (Theater Mu), May Day (NewYorkRep), and Surviving the Nian (The Theater Offensive, IRNE Award Winner for "Best New Play" 2007). Her works have received support from 5th Avenue Theatre, The Village Theater, Musical Theater Factory, Playwrights Horizons, Keen Company, Weston Playhouse, NewYorkRep, Company One Theatre, National Performance Network, and New England Foundation for the Arts, among others. In addition to working in theater and film, Melissa has released music solo and collaboratively, including 2 Seconds Away, Drive Away Home (as Good Asian Drivers), and The Beginning (as Melissa Li & The Barely Theirs).
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Kit Yan (they/she/he) is a Yellow American New York based artist, born in Enping, China, and raised in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Kit is a 2023 ASCAP Harold Adamson Lyric Award winner, 2022 Jonathan Larson Grant, 2019 Vivace Award winner, and 2021 Kleban Prize recipient for Libretto, a 2021 Sundance IDP Fellow and grantee, a former Musical Theater Factory Makers Fellow, Playwright’s Center fellow, Company One/Pao Arts Fellow, Lincoln Center Writer in residence, Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow and MacDowell Fellow. Their films have been shown at OUTfest, CAAMfest, The LA Asian Pacific Film Festival, and The Asian American International Film Festival among many others. Kit’s works include INTERSTATE, which won "Best Lyrics" at the 2018 New York Musical Theater Festival, QUEER HEARTACHE which won 5 awards at the Chicago and SF Fringe Festivals, and MISS STEP which received a first draft commission from 5th Avenue theater. Kit’s forthcoming commissions include work with Playwrights Horizons Soundstage, OSF, Keen Company, and San Diego Repertory Theater. Their work has been produced by the American Repertory Theater, the Smithsonian, NAMT, Musical Theater Factory, the New York Musical Festival, Mixed Blood, and Diversionary Theater. Kit has also been a writer for Disney and is developing work for tv and film.
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