MELT Returns to West Hollywood: An Intimate New Play About Love Without Labels

MELT is returning to the Marilyn Monroe Theatre at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute in West Hollywood this fall, with performances running September 24–26 and September 30–October 2, 2026.

Written by Shak Kanish and directed by Fabiana Medici and Chris Prinzo, the play follows two college students — a hockey captain and a theatre student — whose bond deepens as they rehearse a production together. What starts as an ordinary creative partnership slowly turns into something harder to name, and the show leans into that ambiguity rather than resolving it. It’s billed as intimate, funny, and romantic, less concerned with putting a label on the central relationship than with sitting inside the uncertainty of it.

MELT first premiered at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute earlier this year, with a cast that included Eli Watkins, Nicholas Scott, Ryan Hale, and Jaden Harris Shaw. The production leans on a simple, effective set — a college dorm-room world built from a handful of well-chosen pieces — with lighting design that does a lot of the emotional heavy lifting during the show’s key turns.

The Marilyn Monroe Theatre sits inside the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute’s West Hollywood campus, the West Coast home of the acting school founded by Lee Strasberg in 1969 and long associated with method acting. It’s an intimate house, well-suited to a two-hander like this one, where the audience is close enough to catch every shift in the central relationship.

MELT: Show Details

• What: MELT, an original play written by Shak Kanish
• Where: Marilyn Monroe Theatre, Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, 7936 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90046
• When: September 24–26 and September 30–October 2, 2026
• Tickets: linktr.ee/melttheplay
• Special offer: 2-for-1 tickets available through September 7, 2026

If you’re looking for something a little more intimate than the usual weekend lineup — a small-house play instead of another rooftop bar or pop-up — this is a solid pick to build a date night or a solo evening around.

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