Melissa is a voice/speech professional, an actress and a director and with over 40 productions under her belt.   She has presented workshops nationally at VASTA and SETC conferences and has been invited to present workshops locally to public school teachers at the Texas Educational Theatre Association conference and the UIL Capitol Conference. The workshops she has presented include topics from pedagogy to experimentation with breath support and vocal freedom, speech work, text analysis, rhythm, and character.  True to her training in Fitzmaurice Voicework, all of her workshops entail different techniques to get the actor’s body and voice to be one.

 

She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with an MFA in Acting in 2002. In the summer of 2003 she began the process to be certified in Fitzmaurice Voicework. For two years she worked on her specialization in Voice with Catherine Fitzmaurice, originator of the technique. The flexible and collaborative spirit of Fitzmaurice Voicework is a major theme in the certification training. The training includes techniques of how to combine Restructuring and Destructuring, the two primary elements of Fitzmaurice Voicework, and actor training methods such as speech work, contact improvisation, Laban, and Feldenkrais, to name a few. She also uses Knight Speechwork, a beautiful compliment to Fitzmaurice Voicework, as an organic approach to utilize the technical elements of the International Phonetic Alphabet to help clarify the character/dialect connection. In the summer of 2008 she will complete an intensive workshop lead by the originator of the work, Dudley Knight, and his partner Phil Thompson. Some other notable teachers she’s worked with include: Saul Kotzubei, Donna Snow, Lynne Innerst, Cynthia Barrett, David Howey, Joan Melton, Lynn Watson, Jeff Morrison, Fanni Green, Kate Ingram, and Anne Harley. 

 

In the summer of 2006, she hosted the very first Texas five day intensive Fitzmaurice Workshop. The workshop focused on Shakespearean Text and brought in actors, directors, speech pathologists and scientists from the entire nation. It was led by Catherine Fitzmaurice and Phil Thompson with assistance from Melissa, Jim Johnson of the University of Houston and Gregory Lush.

 

Her professional vocal/dialect/text coaching credits include “Present Laughter” and “Take Me Out” at Zachary Scott Theatre in Austin, and “King Lear”, “Coriolanus”, and “Twelfth Night” at the Tony award winning Utah Shakespeare Festival. At the collegiate level, she got started coaching at UNCG and continues to stay busy working on all of the mainstage theatre productions at Texas State University. A few of the productions she has worked on include “A Piece of My Heart”, “Much Ado About Nothing”, “The Rocky Horror Show”, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, and “Going after Cacciato”. 

 

An award winning actress, her versatility allows her to play a variety of different characters. A few of her favorites include “Ma Joad” in Grapes of Wrath, “Claire Zacchanasian” in The Visit, “Daisy D. D. Devore” in The Adding Machine, “Camillo/a” in “The Winter’s Tale”, and “Mary” in Serenading Louie.