WRITING

 

CHECKING OUT

feature script - surreal dramedy

When Alex’s friends take her on a “thirtieth birthday throwback tour” to her old high school, long-avoided past traumas launch her into dissociated mind games, in the form of a literal game show. Can she win the game to get back into her body before losing her apartment, her best friend, and her sense of reality? Only the annoying clone gameshow host “Cool Alex” knows for sure, but who’s side is she really on…

  • The short proof of concept had its World Premiere at Academy Award & BAFTA-Qualifying 2025 LA Shorts International Film Festival , was a Winner of Best U.S. Short Film, Best Actress, and Nominee Best LGBTQ Short, Best U.S. Short Director at The Seattle Film Festival

 

GRANDPA COMEDY SHOW

Ames Miyako performing Grandpa Comedy Show at Highways Performance Space

short play - comedy

What parts of our ancestors’ stories do we rely on to define ourselves? Can comedy make pain funny, or is it just painful to watch? And does Ames REALLY laugh like Seth Rogan? Grandpa Comedy Show is a Japanese-American stand-up, sit-down, story time about intergenerational joy despite intergenerational trauma, and how we tend the gardens that came before us.

  • Premiere at Crossing Pride x Sorority Theatre at Highways performance space - Fall 2023

  • Festival run with Leo Rising Theatre Company’s “2023 Short Play Festival” - Winter 2023

 
 

PARTNERSHIP WITH A THEATRE COMPANY TO AMPLIFY UNDERREPRESENTED-IN-MEDICINE STUDENTS

academic journal article (co-author) - published in Voices in Bioethics by Columbia University Libraries

“This paper describes how the medical students partnered with a theater company that applied elements of verbatim theater to anonymously present student narratives and engage their medical school community around issues of racism and discrimination.”

In a collaboration with Squeaky Wheelz Productions (of which Ames is a co-founding former company member) Ames worked with medical students of Quinnipiac University to create a short film featuring professional actors reading students’ verbatim stories.

 

ROOTBOUND

short dramatic stage scene

When husband Dale returns home from the Middle East with the U.S. Army, wife Amina digs deep to find their once-simple love as inextricable ancestral truths unearth themselves.

  • performed at The Signature Theatre in New York City with Columbia University’s 2018 Acting MFA Showcase.