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Mrs. Cooper works professionally as a director, choreographer, producer, and casting director, and is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. She served as the Executive Producer of The Miracle at The Miracle Theater in Pigeon Forge, TN, for seven years, is a commissioned writer/director for Fee-Hedrick Family Entertainment, Inc., and has served as a professional casting director for both movies and theater in New York City, Chicago, and Atlanta. Mrs. Cooper is a registered songwriter with BMI in New York City, and is a member of both The Dramatists Guild of America and The Gospel Music Association.
Besides being a winner of the Charles M. Getchell national award for playwriting, her lyrics for Rebel Cry were a finalist in the national Lehman Engel Musical Theater Competition in New York City in the fall of 2002. Rebel Cry was a national finalist in the 2003 David Mark Cohen Playwriting Competition sponsored by the Kennedy Center, and April Morning was a 2004 semifinalist in the Appalachian Festival of New Plays. Besides the musical, The Miracle, other works include Monte Cristo: The Musical, April Morning, Ribs for Dinner, June & Judd of the Blue Ridge, Fireflies, Who’s Your Best Friend, Shenandoah Christmas, Christmas at the Five & Dime, One Holy Lamb, and To Each His Own. She has partnered with writers David Legg and John Painter on musicals, and also with Mike Speck on narration for his Christmas musicals. (Their collaboration on The Heart of Christmas resulted in a Dove Award nomination in 2005). She has also won a Manny Award for industrial documentaries for Share Your Love, which she both wrote and directed. She and her husband own Greenbrook Productions, Inc.
A professional director/choreographer of over 100 shows, her professional credits include: The Miracle (directed it for 5 consecutive years), Singin’ in the Rain, Godspell, Guys & Dolls, West Side Story, The Music Man, Grease, Once On This Island, The Wiz, Hello Dolly, Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Will Rogers Follies, The Gifts Of The Magi, April Morning, Annie, Big River, Quilters, The Music Man, The Fantasticks, Oliver, The Wizard Of Oz, Meet Me In St. Louis, Brigadoon, School House Rock, She Loves Me, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Cinderella, Christmas At The Five & Dime (For LBN), Shenandoah Christmas (For LBN).
She is an Associate Professor of Theatre Arts and is the Chair of the Theatre Arts Department at Liberty University where she teaches such classes as Playwriting, Directing and Musical Theatre. Some of her academic directing credits include Macbeth, Steel Magnolias, Oklahoma!, Into the Woods, Wait Until Dark, Crazy for You, 12 Angry Men, Fiddler on the Roof, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Cheaper by the Dozen, Our Town, Ragtime, The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged, Beauty and the Beast, The Secret Garden, Aida, You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, Parade, Little Women, Smoke on the Mountain, Thoroughly Modern Millie, My Fair Lady, Jane Eyre, Hairspray, and The Phantom of the Opera.
Mrs. Cooper has received twelve Kennedy Center American College Theatre Merit Awards for Excellence in Directing: April Morning, Monte Cristo, Beauty and the Beast, Secret Garden, Aida, Into the Woods, Thoroughly Modern Millie, West Side Story, Jane Eyre, Hairspray, Phantom of the Opera, and Oklahoma!.
Past Alluvion productions she has directed: Peter Pan, Tarzan, Les Miserables, Kindertransport, Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid, The Secret Garden, Sister Act, and Beauty and the Beast.
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