Melanie Schuessler brings years of experience as a professional costume designer and costume technician to Eastern. She holds an MFA in Costume Design from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a BA in History from Rice University, Houston, Texas, and though her passion extends to all periods of fashion history, her research focuses on the clothing of 16th-century England.
Professional design credits include Lucia di Lammermoor, Lady, Be Good, and Ain’t Misbehavin’ for Skylight Opera Theatre, Milwaukee, WI; The Caretaker, Steam Bath, and Twelfth Night for Bialystock and Bloom, Milwaukee, WI; Macbeth for the Milwaukee Shakespeare Company; and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change for Madison Repertory Theatre. Her designs have also appeared at Main
Street Theatre in Houston, Texas and Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
On the technical side of costuming, she has worked as a professional Cutter/Draper for dozens of shows at companies including Skylight Opera Theatre, Pine Mountain Music Festival, Next Act Theatre, and Madison Repertory Theatre.
Her research on historic clothing ranges from the creation of a portrait database to the examination of Tudor-era letters for clothing references and also includes hands-on experiments to determine how clothing was built and worn in the past. Her portfolio appears online at http://www.faucet.net/costume
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