MELT✳

I wrote this as a boy who loves love. As someone who wanted that big, messy, cinematic college romance more than anything. Unfortunately, I never quite got it. So...much like Finch, I decided to put it on stage.

But over the months, I’ve changed. And my understanding of MELT has changed with me. What started as a simple romance became a story about love in all the ways it can show up in our lives.

This play is a labor of love.

I think I’m still learning what that word means. There’s the love we dream about, the love we find in friendship, and the love we feel for someone without quite knowing what to call it. Sometimes someone makes us feel seen, safe, or a little more ourselves—and finding a name for that feeling is harder than feeling it.

What happens when we don’t label what we feel for someone, or how they make us feel? Can we let that connection matter without deciding exactly what it’s supposed to be?

What if all that matters is that we feel it—and that’s enough?

I wrote MELT hoping someone would see the story I never got to live and leave ready to take a chance I wasn’t brave enough to. I still hope that. But now, I also hope you leave with a little more room for love to surprise you. To look different than you imagined. To mean something even when you don’t have all the words for it.

I hope you all get a happy ending to your story—even if it looks different from the one you pictured.

Don’t leave here wondering...

What if?

Thank you for letting us share this love story with you!!

Shak Kanish