Stories on Stage: Tom Lin & Melanie Abrams

Stories on Stage Davis began in the fall of 2013 as the passion project of our founder, Jeri Howitt, who wanted to establish a new and unique home for literature in the city of Davis. Following the example of National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts and our own sister series Stories on Stage Sacramento, Howitt launched a monthly series with performances of the best authors and writing she could find.

And actors. Our event pairs each story with an actor, who brings new life to the experience of hearing literature aloud. (Our shows are like nights at the theater!) We invite our authors to introduce their work, before they hand the mic over to their actor, who performs the story.

Melanie Abrams is the author of The Joy of Cannabis: 75 Ways to Amplify Your Life Through the Science and Magic of Cannabis and the novels Playingand Meadowlark. She is a developmental editor and photographer and teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley.

Martha Omiyo Kight, a returning Stories on Stage Davis actor, will read an excerpt from Melanie Abrams’ Meadowlark. Martha has been very active in the Sacramento area theatre community for four decades as an actor, singer, poet, director, props mistress, and costumer. Most recently, she appeared in the inaugural production of Sacramento’s Black Point Theatre, The Field, and Shakespeare in Love at SCC’s Sacramento City Theatre – both roles for which she has been nominated for Supporting Female for Sacramento’s Elly Awards. Her credits in area theaters include, Violet Weston in August, Osage County, Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, Sister Aloysius in Doubt, and many other leading and supporting roles. Martha has been writing poetry and reading her own and others’ work since 2009. She was featured in the Sacramento Voices Poetry  series (published in three Sacramento Voices anthologies). This will be her fifth appearance at Stories on Stage Davis, and she has also read for Stories on Stage Sacramento.

Tom Lin is the author of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, which won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award. He lives in Davis, California, where he is pursuing a PhD in English.

Larry Lew will read an excerpt from Tom Lin’s novel The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu. Since the 1990’s, Larry has worked with a number of community theaters in the Sacramento area, including The Old Eagle Theater with Laura Lothian; Stockton’s Asian Pacific Theater Company with Dennis Yep and Val Acoba; Signag Tala with Sonny Alforque; Auburn’s Motherload Stage Company with Stuart S.W. Smith, and Celebration Arts with James Wheatley. Most recently, he performed at Sacramento Stories on Stage, reading Steph Cha’s “All Luck” – an excerpt from her L.A.-based story “South Central Noir.”

In accordance with the Pence’s COVID policies, we are strongly recommending but not requiring masks.