Melanie started her creative career as a dancer studying at Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, the Interlochen Arts Academy and the Juilliard School of Music at Lincoln Center. While at Juilliard, she was inspired to pursue acting and enrolled at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting in New York City. After graduation, she launched her professional acting career, going on to amass an impressive list of credits, including Man on the Moon, staring Jim Carey and Courtney Love, directed by two time Academy Award winner Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus), Law and Order, Henry Fool, directed by Hal Hartley, Homicide: Life on the Streets, and off Broadway in If Memory Serves, staring Elizabeth Ashley and Sam Trammell (True Blood). Melanie was once again inspired by the brilliant people she was so blessed to work with, and tried her hand at writing and directing. Her first short film Granted! was part of the official selection at the FIAF International Film Festival and debuted at the historic Mann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles. Her feature length script, The End of the Road, was one of five to be selected for the OUTFEST Film Festival Screenwriter's Lab. The staged reading was directed by Guinevere Turner (American Psycho, Go Fish) at the Directors Guild of America as part of the OUTFEST official selection. The short film Fast, based on The End of the Road, is in post-production (2013). Melanie directed her first music video - "Clean" - for singer songwriter Sarah Ault. Melanie lives in Los Angeles with her loving and brilliant modern family.