Melissa Morris
Adjunct Lecturer
Music Theatre, Acting
Drama, Music/Theatre
Melissa Morris is an actor, singer, musician, musical director, composer, playwright, sound designer and teacher. She is a graduate of both the Music and Drama departments at Queen’s, and also attended Australian National University. Melissa’s career has taken her across Canada, where she has had the pleasure of working at Chemainus Theatre, Port Hope Festival Theatre, Thousand Islands Playhouse, Stirling Theatre, Upper Canada Playhouse, Orillia Opera House, Seven Tyrants Theatre, Theatre 20, Theatre Collingwood, and Theatre Kingston. She has been the Resident Musical Director/Composer at St Lawrence Shakespeare Festival for the past 8 seasons, composing and mounting 3 musicals in Prescott, The Three Musketeers, Comedy of Errors, and Maid for a Musket. There she also debuted her 2-hander play with music entitled Love Stories: Prescott. Melissa was a composer of Evil Dead the Musical, along with other Queen’s graduates. Evil Dead continues to run internationally. She has sound designed several shows, and also composed music for film. She teaches privately as well as in several Arts schools in the GTA.
Courses
In Musical Theatre Vocal Techniques, MUTH 210, we explore multiple vocal techniques that are used to sing the repertoire that makes up the musical theatre canon such as legit, belt, twang, mix, sob, and speech-level singing. The course incorporates the study of opera, operetta, golden age musical theatre, contemporary musical theatre, pop, country, r and b and folk styles. Through watching performances, students analyze vocal techniques and how they are produced. Students perform in multiple genres, embodying the techniques learned. Other course objectives are to become more familiar with vocal anatomy, vocal health, giving and receiving feedback, song analysis and acting through song.