BIOGRAPHY AT A GLANCE:
Thanks for visiting! I’m Melanie Anthony (she/her)~ a Los Angeles-based freelance dramaturg who centers my collaborative work on focused, relevant production dramaturgy; thoughtful, well-organized new play festival curation and literary management that seeks to uplift and amplify underrepresented voices. I believe in supportive, inquiry-based new play development and offer empathetic audience engagement services. I apply my intersectional, lived-experiences to nurture artists and best practices in theater, film and documentary media.
Credits include: Playwrights’ Center, MADLab–Moving Arts Theatre Play Development, Jewish Plays Project National Contest, Risk Theater Modern Tragedy Competition: reader/juror/evaluator/respondent; (Kennedy Center)American College...
BIOGRAPHY AT A GLANCE:
Thanks for visiting! I’m Melanie Anthony (she/her)~ a Los Angeles-based freelance dramaturg who centers my collaborative work on focused, relevant production dramaturgy; thoughtful, well-organized new play festival curation and literary management that seeks to uplift and amplify underrepresented voices. I believe in supportive, inquiry-based new play development and offer empathetic audience engagement services. I apply my intersectional, lived-experiences to nurture artists and best practices in theater, film and documentary media.
Credits include: Playwrights’ Center, MADLab–Moving Arts Theatre Play Development, Jewish Plays Project National Contest, Risk Theater Modern Tragedy Competition: reader/juror/evaluator/respondent; (Kennedy Center)American College Theater Festival: Southwest-Pacific Region 8 dramaturgy chair/coordinator-teaching artist; Urbanite Theatre Modern Works Festival, (Kennedy Center)American College Theater Festival-Devising, JPP, Risk Theater: festival-workshop dramaturg, talkback moderator; Santa Monica Rep: dramaturg; Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library with Pacific Resident Theatre: literary manager Venice Voices Festival; Pacific Resident Theatre, Morgan-Wixson Theater: lobby dramaturgy; Jewish Plays Project Los Angeles co-producer; Morgan-Wixson New Works Festivals: literary manager & festival dramaturg; and ‘ghost’ dramaturgy on sidewalks and in Zoom boxes.
DETAILED CREDITS, DRAMATURGICAL PROJECTS:
• MADLab-Moving Arts Theatre Play Development Lab, Respondent. Los Angeles, CA 2026.
• SANTA MONICA REP, Company Dramaturg. Santa Monica, CA 2025 to present.
• (KENNEDY CENTER) AMERICAN COLLEGE THEATER FESTIVAL Region 8 Dramaturgy Chair-Coordinator and teaching artist/mentor. Southwest/Pacific, 2024 to present. Devising performances talkback moderator, 2025, 26.
• PLAYWRIGHTS’ CENTER, Reader-Evaluator. Twin Cities, MN 2025 to present.
• VENICE PUBLIC LIBRARY with PACIFIC RESIDENT THEATER, Literary Manager, VENICE VOICES (festival of site-specific short plays to explore Venice CA’s past, present, and imagined future). Venice, CA 2026.
• JEWISH PLAYS PROJECT (JPP), Co-producer, reading series and live contest. Los Angeles.2025- present.
• JPP - National JPP Artist Panel Reader, 2023 to present; Working Group 2025 to present.
• URBANITE THEATRE Modern Works Festival (celebrating emerging and established female playwrights), Festival Dramaturg (play development, production dramaturgy research/support) & Talkback Moderator. Sarasota, FL 2025. With Sarah Cho (SCREEN TIME), Stacey Isom Campbell (1999), and Jenny Stafford (AHOY-HOY).
• PACIFIC RESIDENT THEATRE, Audience Engagement Dramaturgy - Gallery Displays - narrative and interactive posters for MIRACLE ON 55th Street (by Gregg Ostrin, Dir. by Emily Chase). Venice, CA 2025.
• URBANITE THEATRE Modern Works Festival, Dramaturg & Talkback Moderator. Sarasota, FL 2025. With Lia Romeo (A NICE MOTHERLY PERSON), Sarah Elizabeth Grace (I’M SAVING YOU A SEAT), and Baylee Shlichtman (IN THE MOUTH OF THE BEAST).
• JPP Contest and Workshop Dramaturg for Finalist Daniel Ajl Kitrosser (WHY THIS NIGHT, A TYPICAL 19th CENTURY QUEER SHETEL SEDER MURDER MYSTERY!). 2024
• RISK THEATER MODERN TRAGEDY COMPETITION, Contest Reader-Juror/Workshop Winner Dramaturg, Franky D. Gonzalez THAT MUST BE THE ENTRANCE TO HEAVEN, (Dir & Produced by Edwin Wong) Vancouver, BC 2022.
• MORGAN-WIXSON THEATER New Works Festivals (to amplify marginalized voices and increase representation on the stage), Literary Manager & Dramaturg, 2023, Creator, Playwrights’ Gatherings informal developmental program 2023, Dramaturg 2021. Santa Monica, CA. With Diana Burbano (BEHEADING COLUMBUS), Amy Dellagiarino (NO LOITERING), Danielle Frimer (MONARCHS), Dorinne Kondo (SEAMLESS), Samara Siskind (SWIPED), LaDarrion Williams (BOULEVARD OF BOLD DREAMS), Khari Wyatt (SOME TYPE OF ECSTASY).
• MORGAN-WIXSON THEATRE, Audience-facing mainstage season dramaturgy, 2022-2023. Season selection/reading committee, 2025, 2026. Santa Monica, CA.
• OTHER PROJECTS INCLUDE: consultant for award-winning short films, directing local new works micro reads for LAFPI (Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative), and creator/collaborator for a 2022 LMDA international conference digital panel.
OTHER-TRAINING
• Kennedy Center-LMDA Dramaturgy Intensive Fellow, 2021 (mentors and teaching artists include Mark Bly, Lynde Rosario, Ann G. Morgan, Martine Kei Green-Rogers and more!)
• KCACTF National Dramaturgy Fellow, KCACTF Regional Dramaturg awardee, 2021.
• 25th annual Association of Theater in Higher Education (ATHE) Dramaturgy Debut Panel, 2021.
• B.A. in Humanities: Dramatic Literature and Criticism concentrating on Dramaturgy, Directing and Journalism at UC Irvine, and returning student course work at Santa Monica College.
My dramaturgical view also reflects lived experience as an award-winning documentarian, museum educator, STEAM instructor-advocate-activist, local social justice participant, mom, caregiver and concerned voter.
I’m a proud member of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA).