Melody Cooper
Writer Director
The Cartel - Corey Trent Ackerman - corey@cartelent.com
CAA - Brandon Lawrence - brandon.lawrence@caa.com
TV
2020 Story Editor, NBCUniveral's Law & Order: SVU
2019 Staff Writer, CW's Two Sentence Horror Stories, Season Two
Honors
2019 HBO Access Writing Fellowship
Grand Prize Winner, Best Screenplay, 2018 Urbanworld Film Festival
Finalist, 2018 Athena List
2018 Second Round Sundance Episodic Lab and MACRO Episodic Lab
2018 Semi-Finalist Tony Cox Showtime Episodic Competition
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
Theater
Nominee - 2013 Off Broadway Alliance Award (“Show Way”)
)Winner - MSU Global Culture Play (“Sweet Mercy”)
Winner - 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”)
Semifinalist A Room of Her Own, Shakespeare's Sister Fellowship
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
Comic Book
Writer, OMNI comic book, Issues #5 - #10, published by Mark Waid at Humanoids
Writer, NOIR IS THE NEW BLACK, anthology published by Fairsquare Comics
Grants
AMC Networks Shudder Labs grant
Ford Foundation Travel Grant to work as a guest artist in Rwanda
New York Foundation of the Arts SOS Grant
Residencies
2019 YADDO
2018 La Napoule Arts Foundation month-long residency in the South of France (to develop SUNDOWN and MONSTROUS)
Leighton Studio Writer’s Residency, Banff Centre, Canada
Atelier de la Rose Writer’s Residency, Montcabrier, France
Special Projects
Guest playwright - MSU, playwriting workshop
Guest playwright - Cal Arts Theater as Reconciliation Workshop, Rwanda
Theater
Off-Broadway
“Show Way”
Vital Theatre, New York, NY
(Commissioned to write the book of the musical)
Off Broadway Alliance Award Nomination
“Truth Be Told”
Ensemble Studio Theatre, Going to the River Festival
Off-Off Broadway/Regional
“Sweet Mercy”
MSU/Williamston Theatre
“Day of Reckoning”
New Theatre, Miami
Five Points, NYC production
Kraine Theater, NYC/MultiStages showcase
“Reading Zimbabwe”
Epic Rep/DR2, NYC
The Drilling Co., 78th Street Theatre Lab, NYC
Reading Workshop
“Sweet Mercy”
New York Stage and Film Summer Series, Powerhouse Theater
Staged Reading
"Sweet Mercy"
LaMama Theater, New York
Antaeus Theatre, Los Angeles
Primary Stages/Epic Rep (Equity Staged Reading)
