Melanie Marnich is an American television writer-producer and playwright. She co-created and serves as executive producer and co-showrunner for the upcoming Amazon series, The Expatriates. She's written for Big Love on HBO; Showtime's The Big C and The Affair ; and for AMC's Low Winter Sun. She also served as co-executive producer on The OA for Netflix. Her episode, “Come, Ye Saints” for Big Love, earned her a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for best drama episode. It was also named Best Television Episode of 2009 by Entertainment Weekly, rated third in TIME Magazine's list of 10 Best TV episodes of 2009, and ranked in TV Guide's 100 Best Episodes of All Time. She received a Golden Globe for her work on The Affair. Her plays have been produced at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Kennedy Center, Dallas Theater Center, Baltimore Center Stage, Steppenwolf Theatre Company and The Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays. She is a member of The Playwrights’ Center and an alumnus of New Dramatists. She also serves on the board of trustees for the Humanitas Foundation.
Biography
Early life
Marnich was born in Duluth, Minnesota, the only child of Mike and Mary. Her father worked for U.S. Steel, first in the company's Cement Plant, then later in the mines in northern Minnesota. Her mother worked as a secretary, eventually becoming the office manager for the local Teamsters office. Her father's parents immigrated from Yugoslavia. Her mother's parents came from Italy. Marnich attended the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, where she earned her bachelor's degree in Journalism. After graduation, she worked as an award-winning copywriter in Minneapolis and then Cincinnati. She left her advertising career to attend the University of California, San Diego, where she earned her M.F.A. in Playwriting.
Personal life
Marnich is married to playwright Lee Blessing. They reside in Los Angeles.
Career
After graduating from UCSD, two of Marnich's plays written while she was a graduate student were launched nationally. Her play Quake premiered at the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays in 2001. In that same year, her play Blur premiered at Manhattan Theatre Club. Her other plays include: Tallgrass Gothic ; Cradle of Man ; These Shining Lives ; and A Sleeping Country. Playwriting awards include: the Francesca Primus Prize ; the Mickey Kaplan New American Play Prize ; the Carbonell Award for Best New Work of the Year; two McKnight Advancement Grants and two Jerome Fellowships ; the Melvoin Award ; and the Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award. Marnich began writing for television when she joined the HBO drama Big Love as staff writer for the show's third season. She remained on that show through its fifth and final season. Since then she's worked for Showtime, AMC, Netflix and Amazon. She has developed work with HBO, AMC, Silver Pictures, Amblin, Scott Free and TNT, and Amazon.
