Bio

Melissa Crespo is a New York-based director who enjoys directing everything from classical to contemporary plays, as well as musicals and operas. She is most passionate about collaborating with playwrights. She has developed plays at theatres such as: The Lark, Strange Sun Theatre, Echo Theatre Company, Ars Nova, Morningside Opera, The Civilians R & D Group, Hangar Theatre, and The Public. Earlier this year she directed the world premiere of ¡Figaro! (90210) at LA Opera following the New York concert presentation hailed as “blasphemous, brilliant…realistically contemporary and timelessly comic” (New York Times). She assistant directed Phyllida Lloyd on Cush Jumbo’s Josephine and I at The Public (Lucille Lortel Winner for Outstanding Solo Show). She is currently directing the Harlem Renaissance opera concert of Voodoo by H. Lawrence Freeman, which hasn’t been performed since it’s premiere in 1928. She served as the Allen Lee Hughes Directing Fellow at Arena Stage, was a Van Lier Directing Fellow at Second Stage Theatre and is a 2014 Drama League Fellow where she directed the world premiere of Maggie-Kate Coleman’s The Map of Lost Things while in residence at the Hangar Theatre. Melissa received her MFA in Directing from The New School for Drama. http://www.melissacrespo.com