Lee Melville is practically a native Californian since his family moved from Utah to the Los Angeles area when he was eight. During his high school senior year, he was editor of the yearbook, bringing into focus his budding career in journalism. While attending UCLA, where he majored in English (with a minor in journalism), he began his professional acting career in Hollywood theatres. Next, he moved to New York and studied acting with renowned teacher Sandy Meisner.
He was the producing director of American Children’s Theatre which offered well-known classics including his own adaptation of James Otis’ Toby Tyler. He also presented A Christmas Carol, sponsored by Con Edison which bussed in disadvantaged children to the RKO 86th Street Theatre for live performances of the Dickens classic.

After 10 years of producing theatre on the East Coast, he returned to LA and resumed his journalistic endeavor with a 12-year association at Drama-Logue as editor-in-chief as well as a theatre critic. In 1989, he was hired by Franklin R. Levy to write the tributes for the first Theatre LA Board of Governors Ovation Awards. In 1994, he became a voter for the first year of the competitive Ovation Awards.

In 1999, he was asked by then Theatre LA executive director Lars Hansen to explore publishing a bi-monthly magazine for the theatre audience. The first issue of LA Stage was published in autumn 2000. With support of the renamed LA Stage Alliance Board of Governors and the guidance of its Executive Director Terence McFarland, the magazine continued publishing for nine years until it launched into its present form of LA Stage blog in June of 2009.

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