EMILY DAVIS is a founder and Artistic Director of Messenger Theatre Company. (www.messengertheatreco.org) Emily has written and directed all of the company’s productions to date, these include Persephone, The Golden Apple: For the Fairest, “The Adventures of Baba Yaga: Little Girl Stew,” “The Enemy,” "Waiting Room" and the “Puppet Rap” (which was filmed by NY1 and CNN as part of the Lysistrata Project.) She also curates and produces the company's Annual Festival of Myth. Elsewhere, Emily directed "Low Maintenance" (a semi-finalist in the Strawberry Festival) for Simon Studios and wrote The Kitchen Play which was read by Manhattan Theatre Source (directed by Tina Polzin.)

Previous to her work with Messenger Theatre Co., Emily worked as a professional actor. With Shenandoah Shakespeare, she toured the United States and Canada in Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Love’s Labor’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Henry IV, part 1. In Roanoke, Virginia, she did children’s theatre at Mill Mountain Theatre. She performed for Georgia Shakespeare Festival, doing mainstage shows in repertory (Troilus and Cressida, The Bourgeois Gentleman and Twelfth Night) as well as three Green shows and Camp Shakespeare (a children’s show). She was a resident artist at Lime Kiln Arts in Lexington, Virginia where she toured the Mid-Atlantic with five Appalachian folk tales (acting, playing guitar, bass and mandolin), taught workshops and residencies and co-wrote and composed Tatterhood, a musical play. She currently does regular voice-over work for BAMcinematek’s silent film series. Emily has worked as a teaching artist for BAM, City Lights Youth Theatre, American Globe Theatre, Roundabout, Theatre for a New Audience, Bronx Arts Ensemble, Arts Connection, LEAP, Smartworks and Young Audiences/NY. In this position, she brings workshops and residencies to New York City schools on subjects as diverse as Shakespeare, writing, clowning, musical theatre, music, visual arts and historical memoirs, to name a few. In this capacity, she also directs and develops theatre pieces with children and teens. She founded Kids Summer Shakespeare, a free program for children in the South Bronx.

As a singer/songwriter, Emily founded and played with Bright Red Boots, who released their debut CD in May, 2001. Listen to CD clips at http://www.cdbaby.com/brboots. Emily has studied at the Actor's Center, HB Studios, Puppet Central, Penland School of Crafts, Fiesole School of Music, University of Virginia, James Madison University and Sarah Lawrence College (from which she holds a BA in Liberal Arts.) Specialized training includes clown, physical theatre, mask, puppetry, stage combat, Viewpoints, Suzuki, Shakespeare and tin can art work. This fall, Emily will begin work on her MFA in directing at University of California, Davis.