Melody Cooper
Writer Director
The Cartel - Corey Trent Ackerman -
Honors
Film (Feature length screenplays)
Grand Prize Winner, Best Screenplay, 2018 Urbanworld Film Festival
Finalist, 2018 Athena List
Winner, 2017 Tangerine Entertainment Fellowship
Winner, 2016 Women in Cinema International Screenplay Competition
2017 Stowe Story Labs
2017 NY Stage & Film Filmmaking Workshop
2016 Meryl Streep/IRIS Writers Lab
2016 AMC Networks Shudder Labs Fellow
Third Place, 2014 Slamdance Screenplay Competition
Finalist, 2016 Screencraft Horror Competition
Finalist, 2012 (Sci Fi) and 2010 (Drama) Creative World Awards
Finalist (Top Ten), 2012 British Horror Film Festival
Top 10% Nicholl Screenplay Competition 2011
Finalist (Top Ten), 2011 International Sci Fi and Horror Film Festival
Winner, 2010 Woods Hole Film Festival
Finalist (Top 5), 2010, Shriekfest Film Festival
2nd Round Finalist, 2010 and 2012 Austin Film Festival
TV (One Hour Episodic)
2019 Staff Writer, Two Sentence Horror Stories, Season Two
2019 HBO Access Writing Fellowship
2018 Second Round Sundance Episodic Lab and MACRO Episodic Lab
2018 Semi-Finalist Tony Cox Showtime Episodic Competition
Theater
Semifinalist 2014 A Room of Her Own, Shakespeare's Sister Fellowship
Nominee - 2013 Off Broadway Alliance Award (“Show Way”)
Winner - 2012 MSU Global Culture Play (“Sweet Mercy”)
Winner - 2010 SheWrites Festival - Synchronicity Theatre ("Sweet Mercy")
Winner - Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (“Day of Reckoning” )
Winner - MultiStages New Works Competition (“Day of Reckoning” )
Finalist - Jane Chambers Playwriting Award for (“Sweet Mercy”)
Finalist - Magic Theater’s Sloan New Play Initiative (“Absolute Magnitude”)
Film/TV Projects
THE SOUND OF DARKNESS - Short, Writer/Director/Producer
THE NEXT ITERATION - Head Writer and co-producer, pilot
MEMORABLE MINORITIES: A WALK THROUGH THE MUSEUM - Writer/Producer, short, Official Selection, 2015 Boston Sci Fi Film Festival
DETAINED - Director/Producer, Documentary, Jacob Burns Film Center, fiscal sponsor
Grants
2016 AMC Networks Shudder Labs grant
2006 Ford Foundation Travel Grant to work as a guest artist in Rwanda
2005 and 2007 New York Foundation of the Arts SOS Grant
Commissions
2015 "365 Women a Year Theater Project" Two plays: STAGECOACH MARY and ABSOLUTE MAGNITUDE (currently listed by Indie Theater Now)
2012 Vital Theatre, NY - To adapt the book "Show Way" into a musical (premiered 2013)
Residencies
2018 La Napoule Arts Foundation month-long Spring residency in the South of France (to develop SUNDOWN and MONSTROUS)
2008 & 2005 Leighton Studio Writer’s Residency, Banff Centre, Canada
2007 Atelier de la Rose Writer’s Residency, Montcabrier, France
Special Projects
Guest playwright - MSU, playwriting workshop, 2014
Guest playwright - Cal Arts Theater as Reconciliation Workshop, Rwanda, 2006
Theater
Off-Broadway
“Show Way”
January – March 2013: Vital Theatre, New York, NY
(Commissioned to write the book of the musical)
Off Broadway Alliance Award Nomination
“Truth Be Told”
2009: Ensemble Studio Theatre, Going to the River Festival
Off-Off Broadway/Regional
“Sweet Mercy”
March 2013: MSU/Williamston Theatre
“Day of Reckoning”
March 2006: New Theatre, Miami
February 2005: Five Points, NYC production
April 2004: Kraine Theater, NYC/MultiStages showcase
“Reading Zimbabwe”
October 2003: Epic Rep/DR2, NYC
April 2003: The Drilling Co., 78th Street Theatre Lab, NYC
Reading Workshop
“Sweet Mercy”
New York Stage and Film 2005 Summer Reading Series, Powerhouse Theater
Staged Reading
"Sweet Mercy"
February 2012: LaMama Theater, New York
August 2006: Antaeus Theatre, Los Angeles
February 2006: Primary Stages/Epic Rep (Equity Staged Reading)
