Vivian Melde works for Ecology and Environment, Inc., as an environmental consultant, specializing in public involvement, planning, and emergency management. She is a member of the Superfund Technical Assistance and Response Team (START) as a contractor for the US Environmental Protection Agency. START assists the EPA in emergency responses to oil and hazardous materials incidents.
As a life-long dance and theater performer, Vivian has been a featured artist at Cyrano's Off Center Playhouse in Anchorage since its doors opened with Thy Country's Good, in which she played Black Caesar. In February 2015, she directed Eve Ensler’s Emotional Creature, which brought together a multi-ethnic cast of seven talented women between the ages of 18 and 32. In April 2015, she was one of the creators of We Came to Stay: Anchorage Untold Stories, a project celebrating the lives of immigrants who arrived in Anchorage during her centennial years, www.anchorageuntoldstories.com. In 2013 she played Maryamma, an Indian spirit guide from the netherworld, in Miss Witherspoon. In 2012, Vivian played Athena in Helen. Some of her notable roles include Sarah, the Egyptian Muslim mother in The Perfect Prayer, the 103-year old Sadie Delany in Having Our Say: The Delany Sister's First 100 Years, and Sister Hubert, a tap-dancing nun in Nunsense. Vivian also traveled to Russia with a UAA cast of A Piece of My Heart. In 1986, Vivian performed in Lausanne, Switzerland when the Anchorage delegation vied for the 1992 Winter Olympics. She has written and performed in a one-woman show called Horse Tales, which was a 30-Something commission at Out North. She debuted as a director at Cyrano's production of Ntozake Shange’s play, for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow ain't enuf. In 2010 at Out North, Vivian directed a premier staged reading of The Black Cockerel, by Nigerian playwright, Ademola Bello. Vivian’s choreography has been featured in Emotional Creature, Nunsense, Big River, and for 10 years, she choreographed Enchanted World, a holiday family show of robotic human dolls from all over the world.