Melinda Gros

Melinda Gros writes mostly about women - betrayed, betraying, playing    mah jongg, bowling on a company team, almost making it to the altar, confronting a child’s addiction, hustling breakfast on a subway station, during pregnancy (as overheard by her developing babies), cleaning hotel rooms, facing down the pandemic, drunk on life or just plain drunk. Inspiration comes from everywhere – An Amazing Pesadic Chocolate Cake from reflecting on loss and trauma; The Smokehouse Queens from working with a factory in Pennsylvania; encounters with powerful on-line sales platforms in The Buy Button; Free Coffee and Donuts from a subway station encounter.  She dramatized stories of the pandemic – an unraveling bride in Bette’s Bridal Bash; opportunities for COVID real estate upgrades in Claire O’Connell; the impossibility of going home in Another Homecoming.  Food always plays a prominent role.  Melinda casts a compassionate eye on her characters’ lives, their regretted might-have-beens, and their still unrealized dreams. Pain is confronted, truths are revealed and kindness sometimes, but not always, offers redemption. These are stories of women’s lives: sometimes messy, sometimes tumultuous, always real.

Since 2018, her work has been presented in New York, Louisiana, Indiana, California, Connecticut, Florida, Maine and Massachusetts and on zoom.   This is my First Pandemic, a monologue from Another Homecoming, is appearing in Venus Theatre’s inaugural anthology Frozen Women/Flowing Thoughts.  She joined PLAYGROUND-NY in 2023.

Melinda started writing plays after careers in dance and costume and clothing design/manufacture; she has credits on several dance films and dance film restoration projects.   

Melinda always dreamed of living in Manhattan and now lives on the Upper West Side.  Her work is available at:  https://newplayexchange.org/users/22529/melinda-gros