JILL MELANIE WIRTH

Tuesday, October 01, 2019

Jill Melanie Wirth
actress/singer/writer

WEBSITE LINK: www.JillMelanieWirth.weebly.com

Video Links:

Film & Theatre Demo

Name Slate

Commercial Reel

SOLO WORK: https://youtu.be/Whvw7UiS_WI

RECENT WORK:

"I Witness." I play the Voices of 11 Heroic Frontline Caregivers. (7 minutes) https://youtu.be/AA0QX3TOem8

"Linda Laubenstein" I narrate as well as do a monologue from "The Normal Heart." It's a privilege for me to honor the legacies of Linda Laubenstein and Larry Kramer.

(3 minutes)

https://youtu.be/3rWVBptIpTU

Jill Melanie Wirth is an actress/singer/writer who has performed in theatre, film, tv, concerts, commercials, and voice-overs in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and London.

writer/performer: dramedies that examine Health Care Issues, Historical Topics, and Sexual Matters.

Bio ....

Jill has appeared at such prestigious venues as Lincoln Center, Playwrights Horizons, Carnegie Hall, BAM Next Wave Festival, Vineyard Theatre, La Mama E.T.C., AMAS, The York Theatre, and Westport Country Playhouse. She has appeared as a solo vocalist at Marjorie Eliot's Parlor Entertainment and in the Meet the Virtuoso concert series at The 92nd Street Y.

Jill Melanie Wirth has worked under the direction of such luminaries as Patricia Birch, Tom O’Horgan, Joseph Chaikin, Niki Flacks, John Vaccaro, André De Shields, and Ted Sperling.

KITHLESS IN PARADISE directed by Niki Flacks Video Link

She also performed with American International/Red Door Theatre in N.I.C.E. (by William Roetzheim, directed by Kate Erin Gibson).

Jill Melanie Wirth has worked in the development process of musicals such as Stephen Schwartz' Children of Eden (Playwrights Horizons), Doug Katsaros' Valadon and Orphan Train (York Theatre, and NYMF directed by Pat Birch); as well as Artie Shaw's Dreamweavers (directed by Jamibeth Margolis).

Her work at La Mama ETC, includes Eve Miriam's THE PLAGUES directed by Tom O'Horgan, William M. Hoffman's ETIQUETTE directed by John Vaccaro, and Lonnie Carter's LEMUEL directed by Andre De Shields, and on Theatre Row in Leslie Lee's WILLIE. Her work in London was at The Man in the Moon Theatre in BORN BAD, under the direction of Phil Willmott.

Jill and David Wirth produced, directed, as well as acted in the premiere stage production of Charles Willeford's HIGH PRIEST OF CALIFORNIA.

On Television Jill Melanie Wirth appeared in HBO's The Normal Heart directed by Ryan Murphy and played opposite Mandy Patinkin in NBC's television special "Sureness of the Morning" as well as in countless commercials and voice-overs. Commercial Reel

Other television work includes Momsters, Law and Order, One Life to Live, and Guiding Light.

As a writer/performer, Jill Melanie Wirth’s dramedies examine Health Care Issues, Historical Topics, and Sexual Matters. They have been commissioned for Women's History Month, and Black History Month productions, and have been produced by The 92nd Street Y, Stage Left Studio, Abingdon Theatre, The Workshop Theater, Artistic New Directions, and in Festivals.. Her works were developed at Dixon Place and Mabou Mines.

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR A DESCRIPTION OF WORKS!

Training Jill Melanie Wirth (formerly known as Jill Kotler) is originally from Chicago where she studied acting with Dr. Bella Itkin at The Goodman School of Drama, Bud Beyer of Northwestern University, and John Malkovich at Steppenwolf Theatre.
She began her career in Chicago Theatre in productions at Hull House, The Body Politic, with The Chicago Stategy Theatre Company (under the direction of June Pyskacek) and with The Halcyon Commedia Dell Arte Repertory Company. Additional training ACTING WITH PASSION with Niki Flacks. VOICE AND SPEECH with Shane Ann Younts. Shakespeare with Andrew Wade from The Royal Shakespeare Company. Improvisation with Del Close of Second City. Musical Scene Study: Jamibeth Margolis. Singing technique: Dewin Tibbs INNER VOICE: David Friedman ACCESS FORUM: Arnold Mungioli

Personally: Jill's current favorite authors are José Saramago, William Goldman, and Augusten Burroughs. Jill is most proud that she was the legal guardian of and cared for her head-injured brother for 25 years. Jill earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Education. Jill throws pottery, does yoga, and gardens. Jill Wirth is married to actor/writer/director/martial artist/book dealer David Wirth.
GO TO: David Wirth

Saturday, June 08, 2019

DESCRIPTION OF WORKS:

Jill Melanie Wirth's dramedies examine Health Care Issues, Historical Topics and Sexual Matters. These pieces are executed through text, song, and movement.

HEALTH CARE ISSUES:

UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE 2040 (full-length): It’s 2040 and American politics and the newly implemented Universal Health Care system have become bizarrely Orwellian. Two strangers, Gina and Vern, both physicians, from opposing sides of the debate over Universal Health Care, meet by chance. They are forced by a shadowy government agency known as “The Department” into a nightmare of bureaucratic power and politics gone completely out of control. It requires all of Gina’s and Vern’s combined intelligence, strength, and humanity to prevail over the forces threatening them, and to turn Gina’s dream of taking modern medical science in a radical new direction a reality.

UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE 2040 (one-act): It’s 2040 and American politics and the newly implemented Universal Health Care system have become bizarrely Orwellian. Two strangers, Gina and Vern, from opposing sides of the debate over Universal Health Care, meet by chance and in their attempts to learn about and understand one another they begin a journey of self-protection and healing.

LONG TERM CARE Mrs. Pink, a social worker caught between the needs of an individual and the demands of the bureaucracy that employees her; takes Ms. Brown, a family member, on a tour of a long term care facility. The story is told through text, song, and dance.

LIFE SUPPORT examines in a serious/comic way the ethical dilemma and repercussions of keeping someone with "no hope" on life support.

RUFUS TO THE RESCUE involves puppetry of two hound dogs Rufus and Cleopatra. Rufus saves the day and teaches Cleo a thing or two about what’s truly important in life.

HISTORICAL TOPICS:

ROBESON AT PEEKSKILL A woman recounts, through text and song, the importance of Paul Robeson to her mother. It details how the tragic events that occurred at the Robeson concert in Peekskill NY in 1949 affected her mother’s life.

THIS IS FOR YOU DAISY ELLINGTON is a tribute to Duke Ellington’s mother. Daisy Ellington’s spirit is summoned, and learns, through text and music of Duke Ellington (a dozen songs) what she missed of her son’s later life, and how her influence shaped him and his music.

BUTLER’S ISLAND BLUES:The Fanny Kemble Story provides a tour of Butler’s Island, where Fanny Kemble wrote Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, which is said to have influenced England against the Confederacy during America’s Civil war. Fanny Kemble, a 19th Century British Actress, is seen as she struggles to reveal the truth about American slavery and defies the will of her merciless plantation owner husband.

INDIAN LOVE CALL is a one-person-one-act "dramedy." The play is executed through text, song, percussion, and movement. It takes a satirical/fantastical look at the assimilation of a pre-Columbian Native American into modern society. Dr. I.M. White, a Ph.D in "cultural anthropology" proceeds to change an Indian from head to toe.

SEXUAL MATTERS:

Sex Sells! ... a woman isn't satisfied with being satisfied. https://youtu.be/Whvw7UiS_WI

PC Pull-Ups ...a woman goes to extreme measures to save her marriage and receives surprising help from a stone jade egg.

Boston On Business ... a woman travels to Boston on business with dreams of romance, but finds herself in the wrong city.

Sex Ed ... a couple unexpectedly discovers the recipe for great sex.

Welcome to Playland! ... where a woman's computer expertise heals more than her husband's sexual addiction.

JILL MELANIE WIRTH

actress/singer/writer

JillMelanieWirth@aol.com