Melina has been a member of SOSE since 2009, where she first produced & played the title role in the SOSE-Host production of Molly Sweeney by Brian Friel, for which she was nominated for an LA Weekly Best Actress Award. She has performed in many SOSE productions including On Emotion by Mik Gordon & Paul Broks, What the Moon Saw by Stephanie Fleischman, Roadkill Confidential by Sheila Callaghan, The City by Martin Crimp Our Class by Tadeusz Slobodzianek, Sex & God by Linda McLean, The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle by Ross Dungan, If You Can Get to Buffalo by Trish Harnetiaux, and Love and Information by Caryl Churchill. Melina has performed nationally and internationally: the Bulgakhov Festival in Kiev with Zoo District, Agents & Assets with the LA Poverty Dep’t, dir. John Malpede & produced by Peter Sellars, in the Robert Wilson directed production of Woyeck at UCLA Performing Arts Live, & as Movement & Associate Director of Trial of the Catonsville 9 with the Actor’s Gang, both in Los Angeles and Brisbane, Australia.
A proud twenty-year member of the greater Los Angeles theatre community, Melina has also worked with the following companies: La Mirada, Cornerstone, Chalk Rep, Oasis, Fabulous Monsters, shrimps, John Fleck, Melinda Ring, Rudy Perez, Will Geer Theatricum & at Highways, the Getty Center, HBO Workspace, A.S.K., LAMEC, & the Marina Abramovic Gala at MOCA.
Her most rewarding film work has been with Bill Viola in two of his museum installations: Ocean Without a Shore (Venice Biennale) & Going Forth By Day (Guggenheim Museums Berlin/NYC). Television includes CSI, THE FORGOTTEN & re-enactments for the History Channel. A graduate of the University of MN-Twin Cities, Melina is also a Movement teacher for all ages. Melina has been on the faculty at the Colburn School of Music, the Stella Adler Academy-Los Angeles, and led workshops at UC-Santa Barbara, Cal State LA, Headlands Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Oklahoma Arts Institute, College of the Canyons, Art Institute of CA, Baltimore School for the Arts, Actor’s Gang & on Skid Row, LA.