Melody Cooper
Writer Director Producer
CAA - Brandon Lawrence - brandon.lawrence@caa.com
The Cartel - Corey Trent Ackerman - corey@cartelent.comMMCooper123@gmail.com
Film
BEASTS OF PREY, feature in development for Netflix, Bryan Unkeless and Scott Morgan
TV
2022 Co-Producer, Power Book IV: Force, Season 2, Starz/Lionsgate
2020 Story Editor, Law & Order: SVU, Season 22, NBCUniversal
2019 Staff Writer, Two Sentence Horror Stories, Season 2, Stage13/CW ("Ibeji" and "Quota")
Honors
2021 Sundance Episodic Lab and Adobe Women at Sundance Fellowship
2020 Silver Telly "Ibeji"
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
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 Minutes of Horror Film Festival on SHUDDER (2021 and 2022) - Co-Producer
Nyx Horror Collective - Co-Founder
THE SOUND OF DARKNESS - Short, Writer/Director/Producer
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
"The Sky's the Limit" in Milestones in History #1, DC Comics, 2022
OMNI comic book, Issues #5 - #10, published by Mark Waid at Humanoids, 2021
"Igbo Landing" in NOIR IS THE NEW BLACK, anthology published by Fairsquare Comics, 2021
Podcast
Narrative thriller in development at Dear Media
Grants
Adobe Women at Sundance Fellowship
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
2022 UCross
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)
