Photo: Maria Baranova Suzuki, New York
Born in the United States and raised in Australia, Melissa Chambers is a UK based ensemble director, live art maker and writer. She works with adaptation of literature and biography, especially of 20th century science. She has created shows inside and outside theatres in Melbourne, the UK, Europe and New York City where she lived during the Obama years.
Along with Kit Brookman Melissa is a co-founder of artist collective The Signal House, and co-founder of online publication The Signal House Edition.
Melissa’s work has toured to festivals in New York City and throughout Europe including The Porsgrunn International Arts Festival (Norway), Het Feinhout Teatre, Amsterdam, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the Rock Surfers Theatre, Sydney. Recent work includes WHALESONG (The Signal House / East 15 BA CT), CLOSE (The Signal House and the Landor Space, London), We Don’t Live Here Anymore (Governor’s Island Trust, NY), The Secret History (East 15, BA CT), The Wild Finish (The Living Theatre and Culture Project, NYC), and A Difference: The Ada Byron Project (Freight Project NYC).
Melissa trained at The Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London (MA). She has worked as an actor in Australia for The Melbourne Theatre Company, Red Stitch Actor’s Theatre and Hothouse Theatre; off broadway in New York for 59E59 Theatres, and in award winning Brooklyn experimental groups International WOW and Immediate Medium. In New York she also worked in new writing incubation for emerging and established playwrights at places like Rattlestick Theatre, Ontological Hysteric, The Ensemble Studio Theatre Young Blood Program and The Play Company where she was a literary associate. In Europe she has performed with Awake Projects (Sweden) and trained with Teatr Pieśń Kosła in Poland.
Melissa is a visting lecturer at East 15 BA Contemporary Theatre and Rose Bruford College BA European Theatre Practice.
CONTACT: melissachambersvoice@gmail.com