Meet The Team
Artistic Director
MELODY BROOKS was an actor for more than 35 years, and has been producing and directing in New York City since 1983. In 1991, 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 and various educational institutions.
Brooks and NPTC were honored in 2018 with a "Trailblazing Women and Arts Institutions" award by RhythmColor Associates. In 2015 she received the "Spirit of Hope" Award from Speranza Theatre Company for her career-long track record of supporting women theatre artists, and was named a "Person of the Year" in 2009 by NYTheatre.com as a co-founder of 50/50 in 2020, a grassroots initiative focused on wage and production parity for women theatre artists and reclaiming the 1,000 year heritage of women in theatre. Most recently, Brooks was honored with the "Lee Reynolds Award" given to a theatre woman "active in any aspect of theatre whose work for, in, about, or through the medium of theatre has helped to illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural, or political change." She joins a list of notable women who have received the award, including Kia Corthron, Ruby Dee, Lynn Nottage, Estelle Parsons and Joanne Woodward.
For NPTC, Brooks oversees the artistic output of the company, and creates and directs new projects that address its mission. She created and oversees the Women’s Work LAB, responsible for the development of short and full-length plays by 12 -15 members per year; she is also executive producer of and a regular director/dramaturg for ON HER SHOULDERS, which recovers women from the past who wrote plays and presents their work in staged readings with scholarly playbills.
As part of these programs she has developed and directed a number of original scripts notably MOTHER OF GOD! by Michele Miller; Exhibit #9 by Tracey Scott Wilson, (co-directed with Celia Braxton); Jihad, The Play by Ann Chamberlin, and Anatomy of a Love Affair by Deirdre Hollman
Brooks has also directed many of NPTC's innovative classic productions, including a multi-media HAMLET based on research proposing that the script parallels the Book of Revelation, a “Murder, Inc.” inspired JULIUS CAESAR, a minimally edited “two hour’s traffic” ROMEO & JULIET, and multiple productions of MACBETH, some of which included an authentic medieval banquet.
She served as dramaturg and co-director for NPTC's OOBR award-winning production of THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, and dramaturg for She Calls Me Firefly by Teresa Lotz, co-produced with Parity Productions and winner of OUTSTANDING SHORT PLAY in 2018 from the NY Innovative Theatre Awards. Brooks is Dramaturg for How to Melt ICE by Women's Work Lab member Amalia Oliva Rojas, which was co-produced in February 2023 with Boundless Theatre Company and won 4 LATA Awards, including Best Play and and was nominated for 3 HOLA Awards, including Best Production.
Brooks was a long-time member of the Board of Directors of the League of Professional Theatre Women, and was producer of their triennial Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award from 2014 to 2023. She works periodically as a non-profit management consultant and teaches/coaches upon request.
Catharine Guiher, General Manager
CATHARINE GUIHER is currently a member of the Timeless Torches, the senior dance team performing at New York Liberty games at the Barclays Center. She most recently worked as the Associate General Manager at Aruba Productions and Company Manager for the Broadway production of TORCH SONG, after spending 12 years at Second Stage Theater and 17 years at Roundabout Theatre Company working in various capacities. Guiher previously worked for four years at RKO Pictures and RKO Videogroup, primarily in Business Affairs and did two years of summer stock with The Dorset Theatre Festival. She spent a year sailing around the world in 2005-2006, and has played competitive volleyball for over 50 years. She is a graduate of the Nightingale-Bamford School and Vassar College and has served on the boards of Confluence Theatre Company and the Gallery Players. Guiher has been the General Manager of NPTC since 2007 and also serves on its Board. She has been a member of the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers (ATPAM) since 2000.
Lynn marie macy, Associate producer, on her shoulders
LYNN MARIE MACY is the Associate Producer and a resident director for the ON HER SHOULDERS Program. Recent directing projects for OHS include Count Partinuples by ana Caro, Gabriel by George Sand (also script translation/adaptation) and The Necessity of Divorce by Olympe de Gouges; a staged reading of her new script Doubt & Deliberation at Theatre For The New City and Zoom readings of Shaw’s Overruled for Theater 2020 in NYC; and Uncle John and The Men's Room by Maxine Kern for Cosmic Orchid. She also directed her own script: Northanger Abbey, A Romantic Gothic Comedy for Theater 2020. Ms. Macy previously directed staged readings of Sappho by Estelle Anna Lewis, Dulcitus by Hrosvita and Ordo Virtutum by Hildegard von Bingen for On Her Shoulders. Other directing credits include Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends All for Theater Ten Ten, As You Like It for Minnesota Shakespeare Company, and her own scripts The Thrice Three Muses and Innocent Diversions, A Christmas Entertainment with Jane Austen & Friends for Distilled Spirits Theatre and Theater Ten Ten. She is a member of NPTC's Women's Work LAB.
Arminda thomas, resident dramaturg, on her shoulders
ARMINDA THOMAS has been a Resident Dramaturg for ON HER SHOULDERS since 2016, specializing in researching and selecting African American female playwrights from the past. She has previously served as director for OHS' Peculiar Sam by Pauline Hopkins, dramaturg for A Harlem Triptych: The Plays of Eulalie Spence, Director and Dramaturg for Wine In the Wilderness by Alice Childress and dramaturg for Soul Struggle: The Works of Georgia Douglass Johnson. Other Production Dramaturg credits include The Black History Museum at HERE, Baton (Premiere Stage); Jazz (Baltimore Center Stage); Zora Neale Hurston (New Federal Theatre); and The First Noel (Classical Theatre of Harlem). She has served as associate artistic director and resident dramaturg for the Going to the River Festival and Writer’s Unit and as archivist and literary manager for Dee-Davis Enterprises, where she was an executive producer for the Grammy-awarded audiobook, “With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together,” and consultant for the film "Life’s Essentials with Ruby Dee". Writing/adaptation credits include Shakespeare’s Women (Hattiloo Theatre, Memphis). She holds an MFA in dramaturgy and script development from Columbia University. Thomas managed the Ozzie Davis/Ruby Dee archives from 1997 to 2018, when it was moved to the NYPL's Schomburg Center.
shreYa ambatti, program mANAGER - GILDER/COIGNEY INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FORUM
Shreya Ambatti recently graduated from the University at Buffalo with a B.S. in Business Administration and a focus in Marketing. Beyond the classroom, she studied abroad with Semester at Sea, through which she joined a living-learning community aboard the M.V. World Odyssey and travelled to 11 countries spanning three continents! She continued her travels by embarking on a faculty-led trip through Southeast Asia, where she learned about the business practices and cultural dynamics in Singapore and Vietnam. She also has prior professional experience working at New Perspectives Theatre Company, Queens World Film Festival, Semester at Sea, and her university's Business and Entrepreneurship Partnerships department. She is excited to continue her postgraduate journey with New Perspectives, where she will be able to combine her passion for travelling and experiencing different cultures with her zeal for storytelling and the art of theatre.
Penny deen, associate program manager
Penelope Rose Deen (She/Her) is a special recognition graduate of Hunter College with a Women & Gender Studies/Theatre Double Major and a Dance Minor. She made her Off-Broadway debut in 2019 as the lead in the internet-famous feminist musical Oceanborn. An Award-Winning producer and actor, she is a founding member of the Torch Ensemble, which has performed at EdFringe, NYC Fringe run, and is currently in residence at Under St. Marks. She has performed in multiple Off-Off Broadway productions, including New Perspective's Women’s Work Projects, where she works as an Associate Program Manager. During the week she works as a Dancer, Choreographer, Dance Teacher and is a published model. Penny is known for her activism, mostly in regard to Sexual Assault with her organization “Save Title IX." Last season she produced The League Of Professional Theatre Women’s: Women Stage The World March for gender equality in Theatre.
Ashley Hajimirsadeghi, associate program manager
Ashley Hajimirsadeghi is an Iranian American multimedia artist, journalist, and writer from Baltimore, Maryland. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, U.S. State Department, Fulbright Program, University of Arizona, and Brooklyn Poets. She received her M.A. in Global Humanities from Towson University, and a B.S. in International Trade & Marketing from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her creative poems, essays, and fiction have appeared in Passages North, Salt Hill, Salamander, and The Journal, among others. Previously, she was a film & television critic at MovieWeb. She is the author of the chapbooks cartography of trauma (dancing girl press) and cinephile (Ghost City Press). She has been a associate program manager with NPTC since the fall of 2020, responsible for social media and the website, as well managing as the creation and launch of 1,000 Years of Women Writing Plays: the ON HER SHOULDERS database.
Image Credit: André Chung
Niranjani Reddi, Program assistant
Niranjani Reddi is a BFA student at The New School, concentrating in playwriting and acting. In her work, she strives to center underrepresented voices - particularly Indian and Indian-American stories. She actively seeks community in everything she does, and is so grateful for the one she's built here in NYC. She’s currently Program Assistant for the Women's Work Short Play LAB, and is honored to be a part of this wonderful NPTC family!
C. Amanda Maud, Artistic AssociatE
C. AMANDA MAUD (Artistic Associate) has more than 40 years’ experience performing, teaching and developing workshops for all ages in both the U.S.and the U.K., dividing her time between New York City and England. She has been a core NPTC Company member and teaching artist since 1995 and has served as associate artistic director from 2002 to 2020. For NPTC, Ms. Maud has assistant-directed a number of Shakespeare productions (Othello, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet), and was a regular performer in NPTC’s Shakespeare Made Simple and World Voices programs. Her professional performing credits with NPTC are numerous, including appearances as The Woman (Jihad: The Play), Gertrude (Hamlet), Friar Laurence (Romeo & Juliet), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Titania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Emilia (Othello) and various roles in On Her Shoulders readings, most recently the virtual productions of Gabriel by George Sand, Slaves in Algiers by Susannah Rowson, and The Necessity of Divorce by Olympe de Gouges. . Roles in England include Shih Yang, a 19th century female Chinese pirate in Asian Pirate Musical which was part of the Vaults festival. She has also done considerable work with New Earth Theatre (Formerly Yellow Earth Theatre) in projects such as Tamburlaine and creating the central role of Eileen Cunningham in The Last Days of Limehouse, a site-specific piece exploring the history of London’s first Chinatown. She has worked throughout England in professional productions and arts-in education pieces with companies that include New Perspectives Theatre Company/UK; Forest Forge, The Contact Theatre in Manchester, the Chester Gateway, Shakespeare’s Globe Education Centre, The Natural Theatre Company at the Millenium Dome, the Soho Theatre Studio, the Albany Theatre, the Apothecary Theatre Company, Mu-Lan Arts, and Theatre Adad. Maud recently caused an international sensation when her role in Zach Snyder's Justice League was restored and comments on the scene went viral.
Jenny Greeman, artistic associate
JENNY GREEMAN is an artist and educator currently a Resident Director with the Women’s Work LAB. She joined NPTC in January 2007 after participating in the company's Shakespeare Bootcamp for Directors and Educators, and was formerly the Administrator of Youth & Community Development at NPTC. In Summer 2010 Jenny helmed the World Premiere production of Screenplay by Scott Brooks, which was awarded “Outstanding Production of a Play” at the 2010 Midtown International Theatre Festival and subsequently moved to an Off-Broadway run at 59E59. For the 2008 MITF, Ms. Greeman and her writing partner, Elliot Lanes, were awarded “Best Staged Reading” for their original children’s musical, The Raggedy Ann and Andy Musical. Jenny is the Resident Director for Dark Lady Players, where her credits include Shakespeare’s Three Marys, Hamlet’s Apocalypse, and Shakespeare’s Gospel Parodies: A Medieval Mystery Tour. Ms. Greeman is the Director of Programming at P2 L: Pathways to Leadership. She holds a BA, Phi Beta Kappa, in Urban Studies from Connecticut College and was a Fellow at Barnard College’s Institute for Urban Education. She is currently earning a Masters of Public Administration at Baruch/CUNY.
Ray A. Rodriguez, Artistic Associate
RAY A. RODRIGUEZ has been a core Companie Member and Artistic Associate with NPTC since 1999. He is a Certified Teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors currently on the faculty at Adelphi University teaching staged combat and movement. He has also taught at Harlem School of the Arts, NYU and Muhlenberg College, and conducted guest workshops throughout the Tri-State Area. He is the resident fight director for NPTC and formerly for the Inwood Shakespeare Festival, performing in and choreographing numerous productions of Shakespeare and other classics. Some acting credits for NPTC include: Petrucchio in NPTC's OOBR-winning Taming of the Shrew; Rodrigo (Othello), Banquo (Macbeth), Mercutio (R&J) and several short plays and readings in the Women's Work Project. Ray also has performed extensively with NPTC's World Voices and Shakespeare Made Simple programs for schools, supported many arts in education residencies, and most recently directed productions of the World Voices shows Steal Away: The Living History of Harriet Tubman and The Bad Birthday: A Mexican Folktale.
Summer 2025 interns
Alejandra Cepeda Batiz
Alejandra (Ale) Cepeda Bátiz (she/her) is a Mexican artist and playwright currently getting her MFA in Playwriting at Columbia University. She previously got her BA in Theatre & Creative Writing at Muhlenberg College. She is very excited to work with New Perspectives.
Isabella Castillo
Isabella Castillo is a theatre artist and media creative, with a passion for uplifting the work of emerging artists. She graduated with her Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Media Communication from Muhlenberg College this May. Isabella looks forward to joining New Perspectives Theatre Company this summer!
Raynah Joi Howard
Raynah Joi Howard is an actress, playwright, and poet currently studying for a BFA in acting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Her passions lie in working with heightened historical texts and devising modern work for our modern world. She often says that she isn't sure what she would do with her life if she couldn't write or act. She is thrilled to be spending her summer with the New Perspectives Theatre Company, and can often be found working at her laptop on a project she could talk about for hours but will forget to finish.
Joseph kayne
Joseph Kayne is a double major in Ethics, Politics & Economics and Music at Yale University, passionate about both the management and creative elements of music and theater. He is the Business Manager for Redhot & Blue, Yale’s oldest all-gender a cappella group, and an actor in many musical theater productions. He also helps out with the finances for the Yale Dramatic Association. Joseph is excited to bring his love for artistic production and management to New Perspectives.
Ruby Jones
Ruby Jones is an undergraduate student at New York University pursuing a BFA in Dramatic Writing. She is passionate about storytelling in all forms but especially enjoys theatre, and appreciates New Perspectives’ mission to use theatre as an agent for change. She is very excited to be interning at New Perspectives this summer!
Aishat Lawal
Aishat Lawal is a second-year Presidential Scholar at Florida State University pursuing a dual degree in Creative Writing and Theatre Studies with a minor in French. Aishat plans to use her undergraduate education to pursue careers in dramaturgy, arts administration, and creative writing with an intercultural focus. Ultimately, Aishat plans to use her education and the power of words and storytelling to connect communities across figurative and geographical barriers.
Since graduating high school in 2023 with her IB diploma and matriculating to Florida State, Aishat has begun laying the foundation for her ambitions as a theatre practitioner. From receiving the premiere undergraduate scholarship at Florida State University, serving as the Lectures Coordinator for FSU's student run programming board, working as the Outreach Intern for the Global Citizenship Certificate, volunteering with student-run theatre organizations as a lighting board op and stage manager, directing the student-written and produced Friday Night Live comedy showcase, working as a ticket agent for the FSU Fine Arts Ticket Office, and dramaturgy for FSU's Spring 2025 production of Young Frankenstein, Aishat has already staked her claim as not just a student, but also as an active creative mind at her university.
Sofia rangel
Sofia Rangel is an artist born and raised in Puebla, Mexico. She is a senior at Universidad de las Americas Puebla, pursuing a Bachelor in Theatre with great passion for acting, writing, and directing. She is particularly interested in learning more about how arts and theatre can create an atmosphere that brings people together for the same purpose. Focusing on women’s work and Latin theatre, she is very excited to learn more at New Perspectives.
Brian Tong
Brian Tong (he/him) is an actor, producer, and theater artist dedicated to amplifying AAPI voices on stage. Growing up in Queens, New York, as a first-generation Chinese American, he often grappled with this intersection of tradition and modernity in his artistic journey. Theater, an industry that has historically marginalized artists of color, became both a challenge and a calling—one that fueled his passion for creating spaces where Asian American stories are not only represented but celebrated.
At Fordham University, Brian has served as President of the Chinese Cultural Society, where he deepened his understanding of his heritage and worked to foster cultural unity across campus. He later founded and led the Asian Student Union at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, carving out a space for Asian artists in an international setting. His leadership roles reflect his mission to bridge the gap between culture and performance, ensuring that AAPI artists can thrive in spaces that have long excluded them. Whether through performance, production, or writing Brian strives to create opportunities where underrepresented voices can take center stage, challenging outdated narratives in the world of theater. This summer, you can also find him working at NAATCO, Theaterlab, and The Tank!
In Memorium
Meganne George, Resident Production Designer
(March 18, 1967 – July 30, 2019)
MEGANNE GEORGE’s credits include Broadway: A Wonderful Life (Actors Fund). Kennedy Center: mabou mines' Dollhouse. Off-Broadway: The Brightness of Heaven, Cherry Lane, dir. L Villar-Hauser. For mabou mines: Medea, Glass Guignol, Finn (NYSCA grant), Dollhouse (Elliot Norton Award Design nom), Red Beads; Cara Lucia (ATW Hewes nom. Best Design First Irish Festival), Children of Ararat, Two Little Indians, Superpowers, Orpheus and Eurydice; Hurray for Iceboy, John Goldfarb Please Come Home (FringeNY Best Costume Design). Regional/Intn'l: For Heaven's Sake (Buffalo dir L. Villar-Hauser); Grey Gardens, The Graduate, As Bees in Honey Drown, No Way to Treat a Lady, UnNecessary Farce, Radio Gals, Jihad, Melody Brooks; dir. Women Onstage for Peace Fest- Bogotá), Choreophorae (European Capital of Culture Fest), Kilkenney Arts Festival: Lucia's Chapter's, A Prelude to a Death in Venice. 13 seasons w/ Bronx Opera; 18 w/NPTC. Film/TV/Themed Entertainment: mabou mines' Dollhouse (producer, Arte, France); Don't Nobody Love the Game (PBS); Sesame Street 10th Anniversary Celebration Parade, Beaches Resorts (Jamaica, Turks & Caicos. megannegeorge.com