Melissa Livingston, Director, was born and raised in Texas. She spent most of her childhood and teen years in a small town in rural East Texas. In this culture, girls were supposed to be soft, gentle, and weak. They should be agreeable and hold their tongues. However, Melissa’s mother encouraged her to have her own opinions, stand her ground, speak her mind and follow her dreams. In high school, Melissa played volleyball, basketball, ran track, and fell in love with theatre. Her freshman and sophomore years of high school, she performed in several school plays and won an acting award at the District UIL One Act Play contest. Then, just before her junior year of high school, she became pregnant. Melissa chose to have and raise her child. She graduated a year early from high school and started attending Tyler Junior College as a Theatre major when her son was 4 months old. After two years at Tyler Junior College, she transferred to St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX where she earned a BA in Theatre. In 2001, she co-founded a chick & a dude productions, a non-profit theatre company in Austin, and served as Co-Artistic Director for 13 years. She has directed over 30 professional productions and garnered several accolades, including Austin's B. Iden Payne Award for Outstanding Direction of a Drama in 2003, and the 2013 Austin Lifestyle Magazine pick for Best Production of the Year. About a decade ago, she became aware of the severe lack of exposure to theatre for young children in Austin and developed a theater curriculum for children ages 3 to 8 years old. Melissa taught this curriculum for 7 years, sharing the joy of theatre with over 450 children. After her son graduated from high school, she decided it was time to finish her education and applied to graduate school in directing. She now holds an MFA in Directing from The University of California, Irvine. Melissa moved to CO in 2018 and started working with The Lake Dillon Theatre Company. She quickly realized she would not be happy as a freelance director because she wanted to help craft and artistic message and vision and help a theatre grow. After directing her first show at LDTC, she joined the team full time. She helped usher the company through a new strategic plan and rebranding and renaming as the Associate Artistic Director for Theatre SilCo (formerly The Lake Dillon Theatre Company)in Silverthorne, CO. In 2023 she left Theatre SilCo to shift her career to teaching in higher education. She is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater at Lafayette College. Melissa specializes in new plays and approaches her work with enthusiasm, passion, and an openness to learn from the process. She believes organization, collaboration, communication, respect, and the desire to “play” create the best art and strives to embody these qualities as a director and an artistic leader. Her artistic focus is on using theatre to facilitate change by amplifying awareness of social issues affecting American women.