Artistic Director

MELODY BROOKS was an actor for more than 35 years, and has been producing and directing in New York City since 1983. In 1991, Brooks formed the New Perspectives Theatre Company and serves as the company's Artistic Director and CEO. Its mission and goals are a result of her long experience working in the Off- and Off-Off Broadway arenas and various educational institutions.

Brooks and NPTC were honored in 2018 with a "Trailblazing Women and Arts Institutions" award by RhythmColor Associates. In 2015 she received the "Spirit of Hope" Award from Speranza Theatre Company for her career-long track record of supporting women theatre artists, and was named a "Person of the Year" in 2009 by NYTheatre.com as a co-founder of 50/50 in 2020, a grassroots initiative focused on wage and production parity for women theatre artists and reclaiming the 1,000 year heritage of women in theatre. Most recently, Brooks was honored with the "Lee Reynolds Award" given to a theatre woman "active in any aspect of theatre whose work for, in, about, or through the medium of theatre has helped to illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural, or political change." She joins a list of notable women who have received the award, including Kia Corthron, Ruby Dee, Lynn Nottage, Estelle Parsons and Joanne Woodward.

For NPTC, Brooks oversees the artistic output of the company, and creates and directs new projects that address its mission. She created and oversees the Women’s Work LAB, responsible for the development of short and full-length plays by 12 -15 members per year; she is also executive producer of and a regular director/dramaturg for ON HER SHOULDERS, which presents female playwrights from the past in staged readings with scholarly playbills. 

As part of these programs she has developed and directed a number of original scripts notably MOTHER OF GOD! by Michele Miller; Exhibit #9 by Tracey Scott Wilson, (co-directed with Celia Braxton); Jihad, The Play by Ann Chamberlin, and Anatomy of a Love Affair by Deirdre Hollman

Brooks has also directed many of NPTC's innovative classic productions, including a multi-media HAMLET based on research proposing that the script parallels the Book of Revelation, a “Murder, Inc.” inspired JULIUS CAESAR, a minimally edited “two hour’s traffic” ROMEO & JULIET, and multiple productions of MACBETH, some of which included an authentic medieval banquet.

She served as dramaturg and co-director for NPTC's OOBR award-winning production of THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, and dramaturg for She Calls Me Firefly by Teresa Lotz, co-produced with Parity Productions and winner of OUTSTANDING SHORT PLAY in 2018 from the NY Innovative Theatre Awards. Brooks is Dramaturg for How to Melt ICE by Women's Work Lab member Amalia Oliva Rojas, which received a prestigious grant from the NYC Women's Fund and was co-produced in February 2023 with Boundless Theatre Company.

Brooks is a member of the Board of Directors of the League of Professional Theatre Women, and has been a producer of their triennial Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award since 2014.  She works periodically as a non-profit management consultant and teaches/coaches upon request.