Melissa has appeared in numerous productions with The Dorset Theatre Festival in Vermont.  Some of her favorite Dorset roles have included Curley's Wife in "Of Mice and Men" with Adam LeFevre (1980), Sophia in "Tom Jones" (1985, Catherine in "The Foreigner" with Marylouise Burke (1986), Teresa in "How the Other Half Loves" (1996), the murderer in Agatha Christie's "Go Back for Murder" (1999), Joanna in Noel Coward's "Present Laughter" (2000), and The Widow Jones in Sheila Walsh's "O The Days!" (2001).  Melissa has also twice performed her one-woman show, "Baby Love", with the Dorset Theatre Festival (1999 and 2004).

THE WIDOW JONES
in
"O THE DAYS!"
Dorset Theatre Festival 2001
"Longtime favorite Melissa Hurst is Widow Jones and her seductive dance with talented Michael MacCauley's Handyman Thaddy Mullen is a show-stopper event that is worth the price of admission by itself"

Marylouise Burke,
Time Winters
& Melissa Hurst in
"THE FOREIGNER"
Dorset Theatre Festival - 1986

Teresa
In
How the Other Half Loves
Dorset Theatre Festival - 1996

"The attractive Miss Hurst has undoubtedly made her mark in Dorset this summer"
Manchester, Vermont Journal

"Melissa Hurst continues her terrific summer as Bob's Teresa, and what a romping, raging, unquenchable time she has"
Greenwich Journal

"Miss Hurst does a really splended job as the disorganized housewife."
Post Star - Glens Falls N.Y.

Elsa
In
"GO BACK FOR MURDER"
Dorset Theatre Festival - 1999

"Melissa Hurst returned to Dorset to play Elsea, the energetic and youthful admirer of Amyas who had plans to become the painter's wife.  Her performance was one of the standouts of the production because of her empathy.  She makes one feel her pain and loss upon Amayas' death, even 16 years later when she meets the daughter of her lover."
The Northshire Free Press

"Melissa Hurst is especially good as a perennial sex siren."
Vermont News Guide

"Melissa Hurst played to a tee the key role of Amyas Crale's bosomy calculating mistress Elsa"
Manchester Journal

Joanna
In
PRESENT LAUGHTER
Dorset Theatre Festival - 2000

Melissa Hurst, no stranger to D.T.F's stage or playing "The Other Woman," returned to Dorset to play the seductive and duplicitous Joanna.  In Hurst's capable hands, we want to see what happens if and when this bad girl gets her way."
The Northshire FreePress

"Dressed to menace, Melissa Hurst is stylishly detestable as the selfish vamp Joanna."
Manchester Journal

"Then there is Joanna, who has her own designs on Garry (what a cleverly devious rendering by Melissa Hurst)"
Bob Couture - Special to the Banner