Leslie Hardy and Jeffrey Wylie formed third act productions to reclaim creative power and green light/produce their own projects.
TAP - Endeavoring to tell stories from often overlooked perspectives.
Projects
DO OVER
Regrets? Donna’s got a few, including a decision she made over twenty years ago. What if it’s not too late to go back?
One of the most well respected theatre actors in the country, with a career spanning over fifty years, Denis was Tony-nominated for Lead Actor in a Play for his work in Simon Stephens' two-hander, "Heisenberg," opposite Mary Louise Parker.
He has appeared in over twenty Feature Films, including "How To Make An American Quilt," "Basic Instinct," and "Bandidas" with Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz, and has made over sixty five guest star and recurring appearances on Television. His TV work ranges from "Annie McGuire" with Mary Tyler Moore, to the David E. Kelley shows' "Picket Fences," "The Practice," and "Boston Legal." to most recently, "Grey's Anatomy" and "The Good Fight."
A native of Maryville, Tennessee, nestled at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, Melanie studied drama at The University of Tennessee before moving to Chicago and studying at Second City.
There she met one of the best Improv teachers in the business, Mick Napier, who invited Melanie to become one of the co-founding members of "The Annoyance Theatre," which is still thriving today. Her performances in both "The Real Live Brady Bunch" and "The Miss Vagina Pageant" garnered the attention of an SNL talent scout and ultimately Lorne Michaels. At just 23 Melanie was hired on Saturday Night Live in 1991 where she stood out playing Brady Bunch daughter "Jan Brady", and a lovable yet completely deranged Tri-delta sorority girl, among other memorable characters over four seasons.
Melanie has since appeared in numerous television series, both as guest star and recurring characters, including “United States of Tara,” “Suburgatory,” and “Transparent,” and a dozen films including "Bridesmaids," "Grown Ups 2," and "Mothers Little Helpers."
DO OVER was filmed the fall of 2022 in the West Adams district of Los Angeles, with post production completed early Spring 2023. Currently on a successful festival run, catch DO OVER Spring of 2024:
Worldwide Women's Film Festival
Red Dirt Film Festival
Bare Bones Film Festival
Fall of 2023:
El Paso International
Chelsea Fest in New York
REEL East Texas Festival
East Lansing Film Festival
Listen to Jeffrey Wylie & Leslie Hardy's interview on the Bourbon With Beagle podcast, about aging and relating those stories through film.
Available on:
YouTube • Apple • Spotify • Google
WHITE PEOPLE WALKING THEIR DOGS
A buyer, a seller, and a realtor converge in a small Los Angeles home, each determined to come out on top or go down swinging in the ring of LA real estate, where the winners remain a gentrified few.
MOM'S DAY
A mother and daughter navigate mother's day, and each other.
A seven minute exercise on an iPhone.
Feature Scripts
COUNTY OF COOSA
Two women's lives, worlds apart until now, converge in a decaying Alabama town -- a childhood haven for one, a lifelong sentence for the other -- as they challenge a past, poverty and apathy hell bent on dictating the future.
The Black List evaluation: “The hyper-specificity of the setting lends itself nicely to a host of unique side characters, and the writer does a great job of putting a spotlight on untraditional, often older folks not often featured in film. This is due in large part to the writer's (Hardy) amazing sense for naturalistic dialogue, which is able to remain character-specific, perfectly dodge emotions and consistently tap into an organic rhythm..."
A GOOD GRIEF
Based on Leslie Hardy's play of the same name. Four strangers, each grappling with the loss of a loved one, arrive for a grief counseling session but soon find themselves on a collision course with each other's issues -- and confronted with much more than their grief.
CHASE LOUNGE: SECRET GAYGENT
In this ode to 1950s musical comedies, a straight secret agent tries to infiltrate a drag queen vigilante group planning to assassinate the new, religiously fanatical President. But Chase is too straight to pass as gay, so a radical DNA experiment launches him into a new world that has everyone questioning what “normal” actually is.
ROBERTA AND THE PINK ICE CREAM TRUCK
Driving the streets of South Los Angeles in Uncle Jose’s ice cream truck is the highlight of young Roberta’s life so when she learns of her uncle’s plans to leave LA (and leave her behind), Roberta sets out in search of salvation--her mother in Palmdale.
RED DIRT TOWN
When confronted with a shared, tragic history, a Black man and a white woman are forced to reconcile their 21st century identities with the heavy weight of the past.
Bios
After more than two decades as an actor, Leslie turned to writing and wondered what took her so long to “pick up her pen!” She was accepted into Fierce Backbone, a new play development company in Los Angeles (yes, they have theater in LA:) where she honed her new found love of writing.
Fierce produced one of her first full length works, A Good Grief, and from that collaboration, she met her producing partner, Jeffrey Wylie. In 2021 they cofounded third act productions.
Leslie has written numerous plays and screenplays and co- directed several of her shorts, including Do Over, currently on a successful festival run. Do Over stars Tony- nominated, Denis Arndt, and SNL alum, Melanie Hutsell.
Leslie is a member of Women In Film (WIF), the Dramatists Guild, Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative (LAFPI), and SAG-AFTRA.
With four decades of performing and directing for the stage, combined with his love of visual storytelling as a cameraman, Wylie brings a unique and singular take to his directing for the screen.
Most known for Director of Photography on the hit web series Where The Bears Are, and as a fifteen year member of playwright development group Fierce Backbone, he is equally skilled in helming comedy and drama, creating a captivating sense of moment-to-moment presence across mediums and genres.
Along with producing and directing partner Leslie Hardy, they have an ambitious slate of projects on the board for third act productions.