MISSION
Vineyard Arts Project is an incubator for the creation of new work in dance & theatre. An artist residency located on the beautiful island of Martha’s Vineyard, Vineyard Arts Project provides visiting artists with the necessary time & rehearsal space, allowing them to focus solely on the development of their new work.
Vineyard Arts Project offers the community of Martha’s Vineyard unparalleled access to the creative process by presenting in-studio performances with a pay-what-you-can suggested donation.
Along with providing a comfortable space for artists to innovate and experiment, Vineyard Arts Project partners with young artist training programs (Rosie’s Theater Kids, Musical Theatre Lab, Jones Haywood Dance School) to nurture up-and-coming talent and promote future generations of artists.
OUR TEAM
Ashley melone, founder / artistic director
Ashley Melone is a Tony Award winning producer and the founder / Artistic Director of Vineyard Arts Project. At Vineyard Arts, Ashley has developed numerous new plays and musicals including Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Appropriate, Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, Bess Wohl's Small Mouth Sounds, James Lapine’s Act One and Flying Over Sunset and Sarah Jones’s Sell/Buy/Date, among many others. Ashley is also a co-founder of A Great Love Productions, and is a lead producer of Stereophonic (the most Tony nominated play of all time) on Broadway, The West End and the US National Tour. Current projects include the live stage adaptation of The Hunger Games in the West End, Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares, and antigone (this play I read in high school) coming to The Public Theater in 2026. Other producing credits include the award winning short film Dark Moon, as well as the Off-Broadway plays The White Chip and The Big Gay Jamboree. Film credits include the Academy Award nominated film Black Swan. Ashley received her MA in Performing Arts Management from NYU and her MFA in Dramaturgy from Columbia University. She lives in New York City with her husband, Nick Mills, and their three children.
Sam hood adrain, associate producer / general manager
Sam Hood Adrain is a producer, director, and fundraising professional based in New York City. Sam is a Co-Artistic Director of What Will the Neighbors Say? theatre company, where he has produced 12 original productions and developed a further 27 new works. As a theatre artist, Sam has worked on stage and off at companies across the country including Trinity Repertory Company, MCC Theater, The Glimmerglass Festival, Chickenshed NYC, Infinity Theatre Company, Barrington Stage Company, Dramatist Guild Foundation, Missoula Children's Theatre, Ithaca Shakespeare Company, Culture Lab LIC, HERE, IRT, MITU580, The Flea, Theatre Row, the cell theater, Strongbox Theater, and Audible. He is the recipient of the 2021 BroadwayWorld Award for Best Director of a Regional Production for his direction of The 39 Steps at Strongbox Theater. Sam is a playwright whose works have been called"heartbreaking...complex...and thought-provoking" (Theatre is Easy), have been presented in NYC at MITU580, NYU, Brooklyn Art Haus, HERE, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and IRT Theatre, toured to Providence and Toronto, and produced as a radio play by the Cleveland Radio Players. He is a member of the Adjunct Faculty at Marymount Manhattan College and was be an Artist-in-Residence at NYU's Espacio de Culturas in the 2024/25 academic year. Recent TV credits include "Search Party" and "Law & Order" as well as a print campaign for Santander Bank. Sam is a member of the Board of Directors at A.R.T./New York. BFA NYU: Tisch School of the Arts, Experimental Theatre Wing.
