Manja L.
Lyssy
Screenwriter · Librettist · Novelist
photos by Katie Ward
MANJA L. LYSSY is a multilingual, Swiss born and raised, New York City based screenwriter, librettist, and novelist with a passion for telling dramatic and slightly funny stories about ambitious, spirited, flawed women. An alumna of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (Film & Television), she has sold two feature-length scripts to Reel One Entertainment, one of which—A CHRISTMAS GIFT OF LOVE—is in post-production with an anticipated fall/winter release.
Other current projects include Manja's first work for the stage, GODSPLAINING, with lyricist/composer Ilene Reid. She is also writing her debut novel, a women's fiction story with domestic thriller elements.
Manja has been a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop's advanced bookwriting program since 2019. She volunteers with WIN (Women in Need), New York City’s largest provider of shelter, where she spearheaded the creation of the Literacy Initiative, bringing children’s books into shelters for families experiencing homelessness.
GODSPLAINING
an original new musical
with Lyricist/Composer Ilene Reid
What if it doesn't matter how history is made, only how it is written?
GODSPLAINING is a pop-rock musical that exposes the biggest plothole in the bestselling book of all time. Why are man and woman created as equals in Chapter I, but then another woman is made from man’s rib in Chapter II? Spoiler alert: the first one was trouble, so they wanted her gone. Equal parts satire, mythology, and tragedy, GODSPLAINING interrogates who is remembered, who gets erased, and who holds the pen.