Melissa Livingston, Director
Melissa Livingston is a director, playwright, and educator whose work explores the power of theater to foster empathy, connection, and social understanding. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Theater at Lafayette College, where she teaches acting and directing.
Melissa was born and raised in Texas. She spent most of her childhood and teen years in a small town in rural East Texas. She was supported by a strong, intelligent, kind mother. 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. During her high school years, she performed in several school plays and won an acting award at the District UIL One Act Play contest. After high school, she attended Tyler Junior College as a Theatre major and after two years transferred to St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX where she earned a BA in Theatre. After several years of professional work, she decided it was time to finish her education and applied to graduate school in directing. Melissa holds an M.F.A. in Directing from the University of California, Irvine, where she began developing an approach to interview-based and documentary theater that uses real stories to illuminate shared humanity. Her projects—Is There Life After Birth?, and I Build Walls—draw from numerous personal interviews and community collaborations, transforming lived experience into performance. Each piece demonstrates her belief that storytelling can bridge divides and catalyze empathy across social and political boundaries.
Before entering academia, Livingston served as Associate Artistic Director of Theatre SilCo in Colorado, where she led artistic programming, collaborated in rebranding initiatives, and in the creation of VIVO – Teatro Bilingüe, a bilingual theater program dedicated to diversity and inclusion and service to the community. She also co-founded a chick & a dude productions in Austin, Texas, producing more than a decade of critically acclaimed work recognized by multiple B. Iden Payne Awards, Austin Critics Table nominations, and a NYC Fringe Excellence Award.
Her directing credits span regional, university, and independent theaters. As both artist and educator, Melissa’s drawn to projects that invite communities to see one another anew—to listen, reflect, and imagine the world differently together.
She 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 current research focus is on using theatre to facilitate change by amplifying awareness of social issues affecting American women.