NYWIFT Blog

By Tammy Reese

New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) member Melanie Armer is celebrating a major milestone in her multifaceted career with the official selection of Last Resort at the 2025 Tribeca Festival.

As the Director and Co-Producer of the gripping new audio drama — described as The White Lotus meets Black Mirror — Armer brings her decades of experience in independent theater, multimedia production, and storytelling to a bold and timely project that explores cancel culture, identity, and the blurred lines between technology and transformation.

With a creative legacy that includes collaborations on Broadway and groundbreaking work through her company Nerve Tank Media, Armer continues to redefine the boundaries of narrative art and sonic immersion.

In our interview, she discusses Last Resort – written and created by her partner Chance Muehleck – and its exciting Tribeca debut.

Congratulations, Melanie! How does it feel to have Last Resort selected for the 2025 Tribeca Festival as an official entry? What was your reaction when you found out?

Thank you so much! Honestly my jaw dropped. It was a huge surprise for both of us. [Chance and I] had pretty well convinced ourselves that Tribeca wasn’t looking for this kind of material. Goes to show you never know. We’d been conscientious about timing, to get Episode One ready for the submission deadline. But it was just a deadline, you know? I can’t ever really think about winning when I submit anything or I’d never actually do it!

Without giving too much away, can you tell us what Last Resort is about and what drew you to this story?

It’s about an influencer who gets canceled for “bad behavior” and steps out of the spotlight to take a break for a minute. Her agent calls it a “time-out.” Once she gets to the resort, she realizes it’s geared towards getting to deeper stuff, stuff she’s covered up for a long time. Then the sound therapy that’s being used to make those deep connections gets weird and things start getting REALLY interesting.

I’m always drawn to really good writing, especially when women are fully realized, deeply flawed and human characters. I love a story about someone who’s hiding some truth and I’m also drawn to underdog/hero stories.

One thing I really love about Chance’s work is that he always says a LOT without saying it. In this case, the influencer is punished for doing something that we might not be fully on board with. The show lets you have your own opinion about it and lets you question the mainstream take in an unforced way.

NYWIFT Member Melanie Armer (image courtesy of Melanie Armer)

Last Resort has been described as “The White Lotus meets Black Mirror.” What’s your take on that comparison?

Well, I’m a huge fan of both! When Chance ran that past me, I laughed out loud. It’s really accurate.

The story is weird, and the characters strike notes that make you go “wait… what did they just say?” much like you do in White Lotus. And the way that humans can mis-use ANY cool technology they EVER get their hands on in Black Mirror — it’s a bit like what happens to Nikki at Ichos.

In both these series, you never quite know how to feel about the people you meet. Last Resort, too, asks you to let go of your pre-conceptions and meet these people where they are.

What do you hope audiences take away after watching Last Resort? Are there specific themes or emotions you hope linger long after the credits roll?

Great question. I hope they want another season! But seriously, I hope they find themselves reflecting on the cult of celebrity in this country. Maybe they’ll think about trusting their own takes on the world in front of them.

Mostly, I want folks to have fun. It’s a good story and goes to imaginative places using the sonic medium in a very specific way to get there. I hope people will see the capabilities of the podcasting space, there’s so much we can do there in terms of storytelling.

Please tell us about your collaboration with writer and creator Chance Muehleck. How did the two of you bring this vision to life together?

We’ve known each other for a very long time. We came up together as theater artists in NYC at places like Circle Rep and Primary Stages. I’ve been directing his work since the early aughts and we started a theater company together in 2005. We also got married that year. Our artistic sensibilities truly “rhyme” and after this many years together we’ve developed really direct ways to work together. If I am truly adamant about something he knows it’s important (and vice-versa); we’ve learned to pick our battles. No artistic fight we can have is worth the marriage and no personal argument is allowed to damage the work.

My primary directorial work was in the recording studio. I had limited time in which to get the right performances from the actors. We recorded scenes out of sequence and had no rehearsals ahead of time, just character meetings. I had to be REALLY present in those moments (and I was). Chance was an intensely supportive player — he could take the reins when I wasn’t articulate with an actor and his ears were as sharply tuned as mine. I could glance at him and know we got the take and could move on or not. And he made sure that all the right words made it in, so we kept on schedule! I highly recommend working with your best friend if you can.

(Image courtesy of Tribeca 2025)

Can you give us some insight into Nerve Tank Media and its evolution? What would you love our readers to know about the mission and creative spirit behind the company?

We started the company (as a theater company) to experiment with form. Chance was starting to write theater scripts that weren’t plays as such, and I was exploring devised work. We’ve made theater, installations, films and podcasts over the 20 years we’ve been around and there are two ideas that underscore our work:

1) The path to our final product is always a series of questions: “Can we do this? What if we try this instead? Is it doing what we wanted it to do?” Nerve Tank is always interrogating the form. You’ll notice in Last Resort that our sound designer (David Tatasciore) uses binaural sound, so the way it was made is integral to how the story works.

2) We work in a collaborative way. We certainly have our lanes; I don’t rewrite Chance’s work and he takes my final word on casting but when we are “in the room” every voice matters. We surround ourselves with people we respect and we listen to their ideas. This feels like the right moment to shout-out to the cast. They all brought their A-game to this one. It was so much fun to work on.

What inspired you to join NYWIFT, and how has the organization impacted your creative journey?

I wanted to connect with other women who do this work. It’s so easy to see it as a competition, but it’s never going to work that way. I’ve been a member less than one year and my favorite thing is to attend an event and meet other passionate artists and makers.

To be honest I also love that in carrying on with that awkward thing we call “networking,” we aren’t managing the added burden of code-switching that sometimes happens in these spaces. I look forward to continuing my artistic journey in such good company.

What other projects are you currently working on or have coming down the pipeline? Any teasers you can share?

I’m ruminating on a movie I want to make (and possibly looking for a female writing collaborator for that) and I’m in the very early stages of development for a musical being made in Nashville about aliens and country music!

As someone with extensive experience across mediums and now premiering at Tribeca, what advice would you give to aspiring female directors who dream of getting their work into major festivals like this?

It’s a hard question because I really don’t know what will work tomorrow, or for anyone who’s not me! Here’s what I KNOW. You are who you are, and your voice is your own. You will do the best work when you care about what you do and love the material.

No one knows “the way.” Keep showing up, keep doing the work. Scrutinize advice you are given with great care and throw out any that doesn’t help you or make sense to you.

Also, one success doesn’t necessarily breed more. It keeps being a hard slog, one step at a time, with lucky breaks and bitter losses.

Keep up with the Last Resort podcast at www.nervetank.com or at @nervetank on Instagram.  

Follow Melanie Armer on her website melaniearmer.com or at @shaperofstageandsteel on Instagram.

Read our previous interview with Last Resort cast members (who are also NYWIFT members!) Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen. 

And be sure to check out the other NYWIFT Members at the 2025 Tribeca Festival! 

Melanie Armer has been producing and directing independent theater and multimedia projects for over two decades. She was assistant director to Leonard Foglia on the Broadway revival of Wait Until Dark with Quentin Tarantino, Marissa Tomei, and Stephen Lang. With her own company, Nerve Tank Media, she has produced twelve theater productions, five short films, and three audio dramas including Dreamland and Saturn’s Return. Melane was an Associate Producer in the Lincoln Center Programming Department under Jane Moss, where she was responsible for operas by Peter Sellars, dance productions by Mark Morris and MAU dance theater company, and nearly fifty other theatrical and installation-based works by companies from around the world.

Nerve Tank Media is the brainchild of Melanie S. Armer and Chance Muehleck. Based in New York and founded as a company that produces live performance, NTM has evolved to encompass different modes of contemporary storytelling and entertainment.

We collaborate with actors, designers, and other skilled creatives in a spirit of artistic adventure. Our theatrical work often combines elements of popular culture, mediated image, and physical presence to test lines of engagement between spectator and live event. We’ve staged shows at such venues as Dixon Place, University Settlement, Incubator Arts Project, the World Financial Center Winter Garden, the Grace Building Plaza, and La MaMa ETC. Our short films have screened at festivals worldwide, including FilmQuest, HollyShorts, the Portland Film Festival, and Interfilm Berlin. The company has been featured in the New York Times, American Theatre Magazine, and the Village Voice, and our production of The Maiden was nominated by the New York Innovative Theatre Awards for Outstanding Performance Art Production in 2014.