About Madeleine Lilia
Hi, I'm Madeleine. I collect ghost stories from strangers, and I’m scared of the dark. I’m a writer for the upcoming game LOVESICK from Rose City Games. My short screenplays have been recognized by several festivals including the Los Angeles Film Awards, Festigious Film Fest, WeScreenplay, SF Indie Fest, Lonely Wolf, and others. I write for Medium.com for their publication, Human Parts, and I was previously named one of Medium’s Top 50 writers for Humor and Relationships. I’m also a writer for the upcoming game, The Witch of the Wilderness and have previously written for the Emmy-award winning interactive streaming series Silent Hill: Ascension and DC: Heroes United.
I received my BA in Theater Arts from the Robert D. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. I studied Meisner, clown technique, and postmodern theater under John Schmor. My graduating thesis was on postmodern theater and adaptations. While living in New York, I studied screenwriting and playwriting with the Einhorn School of the Performing Arts (ESPA at Primary Stages) under Mêlisa Annis and Daniel Talbott. I also previously studied clown at NYC's The Pandemonium Studio under Gabriel Levey.
Artist’s Statement
My parents tell the same stories over and over again. They wait for fresh audiences (or friends who forget that they were told this story to begin with) and then they strike. They unfold their carefully practiced story of the time I had a meltdown at SeaWorld with the same finesse as a peacock fanning its tail feathers. The story isn’t that exciting, but it’s part of my family’s legend. I wanted to spend all day with a man in a penguin suit named Petey.
My writing resembles an inside joke from a piece of family lore, building mythology out of the little moments in our lives that get told again and again. You have an expectation that you learned from storytelling—that your life too will follow a narrative arc with rising action, a climax, and a tidy resolution. However, your important life story and your desire to be great conflicts with the routines, repetition, and minutiae that lives are built from. It’s in the absurdity of this fundamental paradox of living that I write from—an invitation for the audience to confront how they live, what they leave behind, and what they carry from one generation to the next in an effort to be remembered.
I am a 2nd generation American. I come from immigrants from three very different countries and cultures. All of my immigrant family have a special kind of courage that brought them to the United States. My perspective comes from their generosity and sacrifice. Through their bravery, they have created a forward momentum where parents give a gift of opportunity while sacrificing the ability to share with their children in a language and culture that was home to them. I write characters that have courage and curiosity, and who have made sacrifices out of hope. I’m moved by places that house us and by things, both physical and not, that we pass on to one another and that we share. The gift of mortality is that our limited time gives our lives value.
My objective is to create thoughtful work that explores legacy and grief in ways that bring audiences delight. Regardless of our life achievements, out of everything we do to be remembered, what is passed on is the love behind the daily ordinary activities. Love drives parents to walk for hours in SeaWorld hunting down a man in a penguin suit named Petey, and love makes us tell the story repeatedly.