Melissa Moschitto

Melissa Moschitto (she/her) is a director, playwright and producer advancing the form of research-based investigative theatre. She is the Founding Artistic Director of The Anthropologists, a theatre company dedicated to the creation of devised theatre that inspires action. Her dynamic, kinetic work has been seen at HERE, The New Ohio, Dixon Place, and she has been an artist-in-residence at Abrons Arts Center. Favorite projects with The Anthropologists include the 2021 World Premiere of No Pants In Tucson for which she received a 2020 NYC Women’s Fund Grant ("charismatic, endearing, and raw."- Culture Catch) as well as Artemisia’s Intent (Winner of Best Solo Drama, Frigid 2018), No Man’s Land (''Perhaps it’s exactly what theatremakers need to see right now,” Theater Is Easy) and Give Us...

Melissa Moschitto (she/her) is a director, playwright and producer advancing the form of research-based investigative theatre. She is the Founding Artistic Director of The Anthropologists, a theatre company dedicated to the creation of devised theatre that inspires action. Her dynamic, kinetic work has been seen at HERE, The New Ohio, Dixon Place, and she has been an artist-in-residence at Abrons Arts Center. Favorite projects with The Anthropologists include the 2021 World Premiere of No Pants In Tucson for which she received a 2020 NYC Women’s Fund Grant ("charismatic, endearing, and raw."- Culture Catch) as well as Artemisia’s Intent (Winner of Best Solo Drama, Frigid 2018), No Man’s Land (''Perhaps it’s exactly what theatremakers need to see right now,” Theater Is Easy) and Give Us Bread (“thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking” by nytheatre.com). Melissa cut her teeth in the physical theatre world as a directing apprentice to Ricardo Iniesta, director of Compania Atalaya in Sevilla, Spain, where she assisted with the World Premiere of Medea, La ​E​xtranjera (2004). She later trained with the Laban/Bartenieff Institute for Movement Studies, Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange, SITI Company, the La Mama Umbria International Directors Symposium and most recently with the legendary Odin Teatret in Denmark. She has led devising workshops for Hofstra University, University of Vermont, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and University of Evansville. Melissa holds a B.A. in Theater from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is married to an engineer-slash-secret-dramaturg and the mother of two dramatic children. She resides and works in Upper Manhattan on the ancestral land of the Lenape.

Scripts

Baked Goods

by Melissa Moschitto

Synopsis

A search for a missed connection. A bizarre natural disaster involving cookies. A viral marketing plan. Unconventional approaches to therapy. Whose to say what we're really doing in a coffee shop? It really all comes down to baked goods. A short play for one actor.

A search for a missed connection. A bizarre natural disaster involving cookies. A viral marketing plan. Unconventional approaches to therapy. Whose to say what we're really doing in a coffee shop? It really all comes down to baked goods. A short play for one actor.

The Understudies

by Melissa Moschitto

Synopsis

Two pre-teens are in perpetual rehearsal for their understudy roles, trying to grow up and waiting for their opportunity to shine.

The Understudies as an exploration of the determination and perseverance needed to create a life in the arts. It's also a window into the lives of two young women who were forced, in different ways, to grow up far faster than their peers, to quite different effects.

Two pre-teens are in perpetual rehearsal for their understudy roles, trying to grow up and waiting for their opportunity to shine.

The Understudies as an exploration of the determination and perseverance needed to create a life in the arts. It's also a window into the lives of two young women who were forced, in different ways, to grow up far faster than their peers, to quite different effects.

Artemisia's Intent

by The Anthropologists and Melissa Moschitto

Synopsis

Declared “a powerful parallel to our current cultural moment” (Culture Catch), Artemisia’s Intent unearths the life, work, and words of 17th century painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Inspired by every proclamation of me too, The Anthropologists’ award winning drama paints a startling portrait of a woman caught at the intersection of gender, power, and art.

Written by Melissa Moschitto
Devised by Mariah Freda...

Declared “a powerful parallel to our current cultural moment” (Culture Catch), Artemisia’s Intent unearths the life, work, and words of 17th century painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Inspired by every proclamation of me too, The Anthropologists’ award winning drama paints a startling portrait of a woman caught at the intersection of gender, power, and art.

Written by Melissa Moschitto
Devised by Mariah Freda, Brianna Kalisch, Irina Kuraeva, Melissa Moschitto and Lynde Rosario

Learn more about this 60-minute play at https://www.theanthropologists.org/artemisiasintent

Give Us Bread

by The Anthropologists and Melissa Moschitto

Synopsis

Food prices shot up overnight. Starvation threatened families from Williamsburg, Brooklyn to the Lower East Side to the Bronx. The city did nothing. A group of women came together to demand action. Boycotts accelerated into riots. The year was 1917.

Using original text and primary source materials, Give Us Bread tells the remarkable true story of immigrant women who united to feed their families… and a city...

Food prices shot up overnight. Starvation threatened families from Williamsburg, Brooklyn to the Lower East Side to the Bronx. The city did nothing. A group of women came together to demand action. Boycotts accelerated into riots. The year was 1917.

Using original text and primary source materials, Give Us Bread tells the remarkable true story of immigrant women who united to feed their families… and a city, providing a lens with which to examine today’s food crisis.

Written by Melissa Moschitto
Devised by Jean Goto, Jennifer Griffee, Melissa Moschitto, Jennifer Moses, Shayna Padovano, Katy Rubin and Sonja Sweeney

Learn more about this 80-minute play at https://www.theanthropologists.org/give-us-bread

No Pants In Tucson

by The Anthropologists and Melissa Moschitto

Synopsis

Indecent! Illegal! Immoral! It’s 1883 and an ordinance prohibiting women from wearing pants has been passed in Tucson. The fight for bodily control is on! Find out who wins and who wears the pants. Created by a team of women, non-binary and transgender artists, The Anthropologists’ subversive comedy dares to calculate the costs of gender-oppression today.

Indecent! Illegal! Immoral! It’s 1883 and an ordinance prohibiting women from wearing pants has been passed in Tucson. The fight for bodily control is on! Find out who wins and who wears the pants. Created by a team of women, non-binary and transgender artists, The Anthropologists’ subversive comedy dares to calculate the costs of gender-oppression today.