ABOUT NPT — ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

MELODY BROOKS has been acting for more than 30 years, and producing and directing in New York City since 1983. In 1991, Ms. Brooks formed the New Perspectives Theatre Company, and serves as the company's Artistic Director and CEO. Its mission and goals are a result of her long experience working in the Off- and Off-Off Broadway arenas. Ms. Brooks was a program officer with the Academy for Educational Development for eight years, previously worked at Bank Street College of Education, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Long Island University/Brooklyn. NPT brings together her artistic and educational backgrounds.

She oversees the artistic output of NPT, and creates and directs new projects that address its mission. She has developed and directed a number original scripts with the company, notably Exhibit #9 by Tracey Wilson, a satire on the African American Experience (AUDELCO Award); Jihad by Ann Chamberlin, a mystical examination of the influence of gender and religion in war (OOBR Award); and Anatomy of a Love Affair by Deirdre Hollman, an intense look at an interracial relationship ending afer eight years (optioned by Essence Entertainment). Other recent developmental directing credits for NPT include Everyday Somewhere Here: Letters From Palestine and Israel, a multi-media piece created in collaboration with Benji Rgoers and based on his travels to the region which premiered as a work-in-progress in January '08 and Finding Home by Keline Adams, which was developed last summer and presented as a work-in-progress in NPT's Voices From the Edge Festival in October 2007.

Ms. Brooks has directed many of NPT's innovative classic productions. With Vebeke Lunn Fazakerley of Primary Sauces in London, she created a unique production of Macbeth that included an authentic medieval banquet as a central part of the action. The production was performed at Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine as well as at NPT. She has also directed the NPT productions of Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, Othello, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Miss Julie, and Vaclev Havel's The Increased Diffifulty of Concentration. In addition, she served as dramaturge on NPT's OOBR award-winning production of The Taming of the Shrew.

She created and directs NPT's Shakespeare Made Simple program and has offered her teacher training seminar at Bank Street College as a weekend course, and for the Brooklyn Division of High Schools. In 2002, she added The Shakespeare Bootcamp at NPT to her teaching activities.

Ms. Brooks began acting in an Upstate New York theatre company when she was a child, touring playgrounds, schools and the New York State Fair throughout the summers, and performing in the company's permanent space during the remainder of the year. This early training and exposure to all aspects of theatre production played an important role in her development as a theatre professional and as a person, and forms the basis of her commitment to extending the benefits of theatre as a positive influence to young people and communities in need.

Her acting credits are varied and diverse. She has performed extensively with Shakespeare Made Simple program on a regular basis, appeared opposite Austin Pendleton in the company's production of Richard III in the role of Queen Elizabeth, and played Lady Macbeth among other roles with NPT. In 1991, she performed in a production of Oedipus, Rex at Epidaurus, Greece, which marked the first ever appearance of American actors in the history of the 2,400-year-old theatre. She also appeared at the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival in Temporary Lucidity, a critically acclaimed series of one-acts by playwright Rick Balian, which she produced.

Ms. Brooks served as an Associate Producer for the NY Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) coordinating seminars and master classes in NYMF '06; serves periodically as a technical assistance consultant for the NYS Council on the Arts; and was previously on the Board of Directors of TRU (Theatre Resources Unlimited).