Melissa Nicholson

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Melissa Nicholson is the Executive Director of Gamut Theatre Group, a non-profit organization that resides at Gamut Classic Theatre, "Home of the Classic Story," located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  As an Arts Administrator she has served as Executive Director of Popcorn Hat Players Children's Theatre for over ten years and Managing Director of PHP's partner company, Harrisburg Shakespeare Festival, for seven years before the two companies merged in 2001 to become The Gamut. She recently completed a two-year term as Secretary of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America, the national organization of professional Shakespeare theatres. 

In addition to arts management, Ms. Nicholson has worn many hats in her professional theatrical career including actor, director, playwright and teacher.  She has directed over sixty different productions for Popcorn Hat Players and has directed or stage managed over forty different productions for seven different theatre companies. She has taught over 1000 students in the PHP Theatre School program and pioneered the Theatre Alive! initiative, an after-school drama club for inner-city children that teaches non-violent problem solving techniques through theatre.  She is playwright to twenty original plays that have been produced for children and their families and assisted in creating Shakin' Up Shakespeare , an innovative workshop program geared for middle and high school students that helps make Shakespeare's language accessible. 

Ms. Nicholson holds a B.A. in Communications/Theatre Arts with a Minor in Writing from Susquehanna University, where she graduated summa cum laude. She served on the arts and entertainment committee of the Ned Smith Center, and is a member of the Appalachian Trail Conference, the Keystone Trails Association, the Capital Area Greenbelt Association, the Historic Harrisburg Association, and currently resides in the beautiful "Bedford Falls-like" town of Millersburg, PA with her husband Clark (co-founder of Gamut Theatre) and eleven year-old daughter, Carolina Jo.