
MELISSA
DARCH
Writer
About Me
New to Los Angeles, Melissa cut her teeth in St. Louis. With a three year stint as a writer and actor on the Late Night Sketch comedy show STL Up Late, Melissa is a female forward writer with a passion for short and long form comedy. Most of her training in Improv has been through The Improv Shop in St. Louis, but she has sampled UCB, The Groundlings and The Pack Theater since relocating. She enjoys them all.
As a young girl, Melissa wrote plays that she performed for her parents. In high school she graduated to a Black Box Theater where she co-wrote and co-produced a feature length play. She went to school for Journalism, switched to Engineering and doubled back to Secondary Education. She taught Spanish for two years, Math for two and then Spanish again for a third. She has a Master's in Math, a Master's in Education and a Minor in Spanish. The one constant in her life has been comedy writing.
Experience
2019-Present
Sketch Writer/Performer on The Pack Theater House teams (Peach, Fridgewater), performing monthly.
2018-Present
Pilot Season. Wrote three pilots to submit to various contests, festivals and fellowships. Won an "Official Selection" for the Film Freeway Diversity Film and Script Showcase.
2017-2018
Wrote, produced and starred in a weekly show "Weird Stuff." Each week we wrote between 1 and 5 new sketches to rehearse and perform in our showcase of 30 sketches in 60 minutes.
2013-2017
Cowrote and performed as part of an ensemble cast in a weekly Late Night Sketch Comedy Show. Cut my teeth on headline jokes, desk segments and working at a staff table. Three live seasons and one live and televised season.
Education
2018 / MAY
Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville
Earned my Master's of Science in Pure Mathematics. Wrote my thesis around discovered formulas to find characteristics of specific polygons.
2013/AUGUST
University of Missouri - Columbia
Earned my Master's of Science in Education: Learning, Teaching and Curriculum while teaching Spanish, French and German in a middle school in St. Louis.