Sixty eggs, 152 ounces of candy, 15 pounds of flour, 12 cups of butter, dozens of cakes and one published play.
Many of you may remember Melia Stuppy from Mmmelia Cakes, a Hercampus.com article was featured on her for her baking in November 2010, but it turns out there is a lot more to Stuppy than just her culinary skills.
You may be surprised to learn that Stuppy, a sophomore marketing and supply chain management major from Columbia, Md., is also a writer.
Stuppy has written ever since she was a little girl typing short stories on her mother’s computer. She began writing plays after attending a two-week summer program at the University of Virginia after her junior year in high school, called The Young Writers Workshop.
The program, which had a variety of genres including nonfiction creative writing, script writing, and song writing, placed Stuppy in script writing.
“I had never done script writing before but I kind of signed up for it thinking this could be interesting, something I had never tried before, and I ended up loving it,” Stuppy said.
Stuppy left the summer camp with an unfinished play script, which she later named “Kids are Awkward” but changed it to “Love is Awkward.”
After showing a director at her high school the 40-45 minute play, the comical high school romance one-act play was performed at the Maryland State Theatre Festival in 2010.
During her senior year, Stuppy applied for Love is Awkward to be published and one of her childhood dreams was granted. Love is Awkward is currently published on www.playscripts.comwhere theatre teachers looking for plays to showcase at their high schools are able to buy the script online for their students to perform.
Stuppy’s old high school Atholton High School is currently rehearsing Love is Awkward for their school play.
“Some of the kids will come to me and say do you have any advice for the characters, but my job as the writer is to give them the words and their job as the actor is to bring the words to life,” Stuppy said.
Stuppy is currently writing a play as a keystone project for her honors humanities program. Stuppy hopes to produce that play on-campus next semester with other students who are interested in theatre. The tentative name for the play is “Andy, Please Come Home,” and is a little more serious than her previous work.
Stuppy manages to juggle keeping good grades, a leader in the honors humanities program, a campus tour guide, baking cakes, working at Red Velvet Cupcakery, and even writing her latest play.
“I’ve always made time for the things that are really important to me,” Stuppy said.
Although Stuppy plans to one day own her own bakery, she says that she envisions writing as always being a part of her life.
You can see Love is Awkward this weekend at Atholton High School in Columbia, Maryland! The performance times are at 7 p.m. November 3-5 and 5 p.m. on November 6. Tickets are $7 online (http://www.s305552196.initial-website.com/) and $10 at the door.