Melissa Bruning   [ resume ]   [ website ]

Melissa Bruning received a BFA in Theater from Nebraska Wesleyan University and a MFA in Costume Design from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. She designed the costumes for several successful independent feature films including Kissing Jessica Stein, Super Troopers, Just One Time, Under Hellgate Brudge, Follow Me Outside and Fox Searchlight’s Broken Lizard’s Club Dread which continues her relationship with the comedy troupe from Super Troopers.

Melissa Career began in NYC, Were She designed for several theatre, opera and dance companies. Some of the highlights of her stage work during this period include the avant-garde new opera Hildegurls at the Lincoln Center Festival in 98’, Flurry Tale and Babar with American Opera Projects and Scaffolding with Second Avenue Dance Company.

Her numerous Off and Off-Off Broadway credits include Hamlet and The Mutilated at The Actor’s Studio, The Extra Man at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Macbeth at the Harold Clurman Theatre, Beirut at the Expanded Arts Theatre, Machinal at the Atlantic Theatre Company, Richard III, with Austin Pendleton as Richard, Macbeth, Jihad and Kolonist at New Perspectives Theatre Company. Other Stage work includes the opera Anoush at Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit and The Italian Straw Hat at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, CA with director Frank Corsaro.

She also works regularly in national commercials.