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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