Melody Cooper
Writer Director Producer
The Cartel - Corey Trent Ackerman - corey@cartelent.com
CAA - Brandon Lawrence - brandon.lawrence@caa.com
Film
BEASTS OF PREY, in development for Netflix
TV
2020 Story Editor, NBCUniveral's Law & Order: SVU
2019 Staff Writer, Stage13's Two Sentence Horror Stories, Season Two ("Ibeji" and "Quota")
Honors
2021 Sundance Episodic Lab
2019 HBO Access Writing Fellowship
Grand Jury Prize, Best Screenplay, 2018 Urbanworld Film Festival
Finalist, 2018 Athena List
2018 Semi-Finalist Tony Cox Showtime Episodic Competition
Winner, 2016 Women in Cinema International Screenplay Competition
2017 Stowe Story Labs (Winner, Tangerine Entertainment Fellowship)
2017 NY Stage & Film Filmmaking Workshop
2016 Meryl Streep/IRIS Writers Lab
2016 AMC Networks Shudder Labs Fellow
2016 Screencraft Horror Competition Finalist
Third Place, 2014 Slamdance Screenplay Competition
Theater
Nominee - 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
13 Minuters of Horror Film Festival on SHUDDER (2021) - co-Producer
Nyx Horror Collective - co-Founder
THE SOUND OF DARKNESS - Short, Writer/Director/Producer
THE NEXT ITERATION - Head Writer and co-producer, web series 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, 2021
Writer, "Igbo Landing" in NOIR IS THE NEW BLACK, anthology published by Fairsquare Comics, 2021
Podcast
Narrative thriller in development at Dear Media
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)
