Lucky 13 Reading

A reading of select scenes from Lucky 13 by Denise Meyers, the recipient of the inaugural Alfred P. Sloan Athena List Development Grant.

Lucky 13 tells the incredible true story of the only all-female airbase in American history, powered by unforgettable women who came from all walks of life to play a significant role in the war effort, sacrificing everything to save the B-26 Marauder aircraft from the scrap heap before being unceremoniously disbanded to make room for male civilian pilots hoping to avoid the draft.

Q&A with writer Denise Meyers to follow screening.

Filmmaker Bio:
Denise Meyers began her professional writing career in 2014 with an eight week screenwriting scholarship at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles where she developed Ride the Wind; The Bessie Stringfield Story. Ride the Wind was an Athena List winner in 2016. Meyers was also an Athena List Finalist in 2016 with Lucky 13, which later won the Atlanta Film Festival screenwriting competition in 2017 and was a finalist for The Writers Lab and The Lab at the Athena Film Festival in 2019. In 2017, Meyers was one of nine screenwriters invited to participate in the New York Stage and Filmmakers Workshop at the Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College and in 2018, she was named one of the “Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch in 2018” by the International Screenwriters Association.

Her short film, The Dark of Night, directed by Robin Wright and starring Leslie Bibb and Sam Rockwell had its red carpet world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017. The film screened at the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, and the Seattle International Film Festival and won Best Short at the LA Femme International Film Festival and Best Actor (Sam Rockwell) at the Paris Art and Movie Awards.

Director Bio:
Mêlisa straddles many worlds of storytelling. Her plays have been developed at and with Parity Productions, The Lark and Dorset Theater Festival at the Theresa Rebeck Writers Colony, The New School, Primary Stages, ESPA*Drills (2014), The Lark, The National Arts Club NYC, The Playground Experiment, and RAL. She also had the joy of writing an episode for Amazon Studio’s upcoming series for children Jessy and Nessy. Mêlisa is currently working on a new musical with Grammy Award Nominee Jamie Floyd (Kesha, Resentment) and Tony nominates producer Jennifer Krantz (The Prom). She has directed two short films, and has served as a script editor for numerous BBC Four productions and for S4C. Mêlisa is also a proud fluent Welsh language speaker.

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