bio

Amanda Moody in Scottsdale, photo by Doreen Ellis

A specialist in the creation and performance of new stage works, Amanda Moody is a triple-threat writer, singer and actor, with a wide range of comedic and dramatic skills, winning the Dean Goodman Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theater and the Bay Guardian's Upstage/Downstage Award for Great Solo Performance. She is an accomplished songwriter, poet and librettist, and her texts have been performed by voices as diverse as tenor John Duykers, soprano Laura Bohn, and The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. 

Moody is best known for her multi-disciplinary music theater solo shows, including Serial Murderess, The Winchester Rosary, and D’Arc, woman on fire, all developed with her long-time creative partner, director Melissa Weaver. The D’Arc soundtrack, composed by Jay Cloidt, was released by Starkland on the MinMax label.

Moody’s original libretti include Bitter Harvest (Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kent Nagano), and Caliban Dreams (West Edge Opera, conducted by Jonathan Khuner and Grammy nominee Lynne Morrow). She also wrote and performed seven comic monologs on sin under the direction of writer/performerJames B. Judd (Snap Judgment’s very own ‘The Closer’) for his 7 Sins Series. Other collaborators include composers Kurt Rhode, Clark Suprynowicz, Joël Lindheimer, and Jay Cloidt. She has shared stages with John Duykers, Amy X Neuburg, Jane Selkye, Emily Bezar and Pamela Z, and has originated singing roles in evening-length works by Miguel Frasconi, Rinde Eckert and Paul Dresher. She is a founding member of the music improvisation collective, These Are Not My Hands.

As an interpretive artist, her roles include Lady Croom in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (Theatreworks); voicing Miranda, Sebastian and Antonio for Shadowlight’s A Balinese Tempest, directed by Larry Reed; Padraic in The Little Gray Home in the West by Margaretta D'Arcy & John Arden, directed by Virginia Reed (Playwrights in Danger at the Magic Theatre/SF); and The Witch in The Pope and the Witch (Dario Fo Fest/La Peña Cultural Centre).

In 2015, Moody collaborated with Berkeley Repertory Theater, Youth Speaks, and Anna Deavere Smith, as an audience participation facilitator for Smith’s groundbreaking new work, Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, The California Chapter. Moody’s poetry has been featured at LitQuake/San Francisco, published in Ireland’s The Moth Arts & Literature, the Catamaran Literary Reader in the US, Lucky Jefferson Literary Journal, and Typishly Literary Magazine as the Editor’s Choice.

Moody’s award-winning solo show, Serial Murderess, received its fourth production in 2016. Her original composition, Last Masquerade, written for mezzo-soloist and treble choir, she also arranged, performed and recorded for John Sanborn’s 2021 triptych, Always / Last / Forever. Her song, Parade, was sung by 29 singers for John Sanborn’s 2021 public multimedia art installation of the same name, commissioned by the City of Berkeley.