Marrying Jake Gyllenhaal

When Mel, late 30’s, single, broke and desperate, buys into her Jewish mother’s fantasy that she and Jake Gyllenhaal are bashert, she embarks on a hilarious and heartbreaking reckoning with the bullshit fairy-tales women and girls are expected to believe.

MARRYING JAKE GYLLENHAAL was originally hatched at the Seed&Spark Creative Sustainability Summit where Melissa Center was selected as one of three “hometown heroes” to crack her story with actor/filmmaker Mark Duplass. As Covid-19 halted all live theater, Center and her team pivoted to produce the very first “one night only” live-streamed play inside The Pico, LA.

Center and team then debuted the recorded play at Edinburgh Fringe Digital to rave reviews.

Initially devised as an elaborate ruse to actually marry Jake Gyllenhaal, - after moving from Los Angeles to New York and facing her history of toxic, destructive relationship models - Melissa has revamped the play as a rallying cry to confront the reality of gender-based trauma, and burn down the patriarchal myths that keep women and girls trapped by delusional fantasy.

Featured in Ms. Magazine, Deborah J Cohan wrote “ In Marrying Jake Gyllenhaal, we witness Center’s work standing on the shoulders of feminist giants.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Unfailingly honest & beautifully balanced - The Reviews Hub, UK
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Melissa Center presents a fascinatingly flawed character. the depiction of contemporary relationships is unsparingly modern...a complex show that, while full of humour, addresses also the darker, obsessional aspects of love. - British Theater Guide
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Intensely relatable, Center exposes mother-daughter relationships, gender, sexuality, harassment and trauma, love and longing, and trust in ourselves and our deepest instincts and desires. - Psychology Today


BIOS
Melissa Center (Writer, Lyricist, Performer)
Melissa Center is an actress & award-winning filmmaker known for visceral women’s stories. As an actor, her most notable credits include roles on FBI (CBS), This is Us (NBC), Grey's Anatomy (ABC), Masters of Sex (SHO), and more. Favorite roles onstage include “Maggie” in A Chorus Line (Dir. Mitzi Hamilton), “Olivia” in Sex with Strangers (Hollywood Fringe), and “Jan” in 50 Words (The Lab Creative, LA). She also originated the stage adaptation of Lois Lowry’s The Giver, directed by the late Wynn Handman of The American Place Theater.

She is the producer, co-writer and star of feature film, All I Want (Prime, Vudu, TubiTV, itunes) and the co-director, writer and star of award-winning viral short film R.V, a narrative that anticipated the overturn of Roe vs Wade. Her short film His Name is Niv, which she wrote and directed, is inspired by her own experience with sexual assault.

Marrying Jake Gyllenhaal debuted during Pandemic lockdown via livestream at The Pico, LA followed by Edinburgh Fringe Digital to rave reviews & coverage in Ms. Magazine & Psychology Today. She is thrilled to finally bring this fresh new play to live audiences here Caveat. melissacenter.com

Jamie Buxton (Composer)
Jamie Buxton is a music theatre writer, performer, and educator. Writing credits include book and lyrics for QUILLÉN, a new Chilean musical with composer Pablo Concha (Latiné Musical Theatre Lab, New York Theater Festival); MY FIRST START, short film co-written/directed by Tony winner Victoria Clark, Amazon Prime premiere; THE FOX with composer Lucy O’Brien, London’s Bishopsgate Institute; and Melissa Center’s MARRYING JAKE GYLLENHAAL as composer, Edinburgh Festival Fringe (online). Performing credits include TOURS: A CHORUS LINE, HAIR, and the RADIO CITY CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR; REGIONAL: 42ND STREET, ME AND MY GIRL, HAIRSPRAY, and GYPSY; OFF-BROADWAY: PIRATES OF PENZANCE, IOLANTHE. A member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, NATS, and the Dramatists Guild, Jamie holds an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU and is an Assistant Professor of Musical Theatre at Milligan University.

Jen Wineman (Director) is a Brooklyn-based director and choreographer. Selected NYC: FIVE (Currently running at Theater 555); Dog Man (New World Stages/Lucille Lortel Theatre); Retraction (TheatreRow); Less Than 50% (59E59); My Heart is in the East (La Mama); Fable (NYMF); F#%king Up Everything (Elektra Theater). Selected regional: As You Like It (American Shakespeare Center); Tiny Beautiful Things (Merrimack Rep); Game On (Pittsburgh CLO); Shakespeare in Love (Virginia Rep); Baskerville (Dorset Theatre Festival); The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (Asolo Rep & Miami New Drama); Sweeney Todd (Playmakers Rep). Tours: Dog Man (National tours: US, Canada, Australia); Twelfth Night and Midsummer (Asolo Rep). Up next: the world premiere of Nicholas Griffin’s Dangerous Days at Miami New Drama. B.A. Vassar, M.F.A Yale School of Drama.

Ember Productions (Producer) is a collaboration between Maxwell Haddad and Amber Coates with the mission of supporting meaningful new work. Together they have overseen development of In The Trenches: A Parenting Musical and countless other concerts and events. Maxwell is a Tony, Drama Desk, and GLAAD award winning producer. Selected credits include: The Inheritance and Broadway Bounty Hunter. Amber produced Amy Adams Wins an Oscar and the Breast Cancer fundraiser concert The Janice Jam. She spent over a decade working for the Walt Disney Company, and brings years of experience in hospitality, event production, and representing bands/producing concerts in the Orlando, FL area.