Denise Umland

Denise Umland started her career over 30 years ago working as a stitcher in the Maryland/DC area, along with costume designing and shop managing at McDaniel and Goucher Colleges. She then became an overhire at Olney Theatre Center for the Arts (Olney, MD), quickly moved up to Asst. Costume Shop Manager, and then Costume Shop Manager before moving to Round House Theatre (Bethesda, MD) as their Costume Shop Manager, and then Costume Director at Signature Theatre (Arlington, VA).  For opera experience, Denise worked as Asst. Shop Manager and First Hand at Wolf Trap Opera Company, First Hand at Sarasota Opera, and was Costume Director at Florida Grand Opera. Denise has also served as Wardrobe Supervisor for two Nutcrackers - the first being Olney Ballet School (using the costumes from Washington National Ballet’s Mary Day’s costumes), and more recently, the Santa Barbara Festival Ballet which employs several principal dancers from the San Francisco Ballet and the Dance Theater of Harlem. In the Baltimore/DC metro area, Denise was a costume designer for many of the smaller theaters as well as a company member of Faction of Fools, a commedia dell’arte company that was in residence at Gallaudet University which cast Deaf students with professional actors (some of her favorite designs were for Hamlecchio, Our Town, and A Christmas Carol). A photo of her costume design for the Fools’ Titus Andronicus is seen in The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series.