Marcella is a costume and set designer, USA 829, based in Houston, Texas.
Born in Chicago, and coming from a long line of women creators, Marcella learned to thread a needle by the age of four. She learned how to sew from her grandmother, who made a living as a modiste copying Parisian fashions for Chicago ladies, and how to draft from her father. Although she originally attended Indiana University to study music, she switched gears, turning her talents for for sewing, building, and painting to musical theater and theatrical design.
After graduating from Indiana University in 1978, she and her husband flew to Brazil where she worked as the resident designer for the Fundacao Clovis Salgado in the Palacio das Artes for six years. During that time, she traveled around Brazil working with Showmar Productions as the Costume/Set designer and Production Manager, as the Costume Designer for the Teatro Guaíra Madama Butterfly Opera Tour, and for the Teatro Sabarà as a the Costume and Set designer.
Marcella and her husband returned the United States in 1985 just after the election that began Brazil’s tumultuous regime change that would eventually result in Brazil’s release from the Military Junta that had ruled from 1964.
Shortly after returning to the States, Marcella enrolled in Northwestern where she earned her M.F.A. in Theatrical Design. During that time, she worked as a Costumer at the Goodman Theatre (February 1986-June 1986), the Assistant Costume Shop Manager at the Nutmeg Summer Theatre (May 1986-August 1986), and a Costumer at the Sante Fe Opera (May 1987-August 1987).