Michelle Winchester

Michelle Elliot Winchester learned to sew at the age of nine and made her first costume in fifth grade. She discovered her passion for theatre in high school, where she was assigned to the costume shop—and never looked back.

Known as Misha to many, she has costumed productions for high school, community, university, and summer stock theatre. As an undergraduate, she managed her university’s costume shop with the help of classmates and friends—learning together as they went. Eager to deepen her knowledge, Misha went on to earn an MFA in Costume Design and Technology from the University of South Dakota. During graduate school, she discovered her true calling: teaching others what she was learning.

For the past 20 years, Misha has taught a wide range of university-level courses, including Costume Design, Costume Construction, Stage Makeup, Rendering for the Stage, Fashion History, Script Analysis, Stage Management, and Introduction to Theatre.

She is the proud mother of a wonderfully supportive daughter and son, an incredibly easygoing son-in-law, and the grandmother of the smartest little girl ever born. Michelle is also “owned” by six cats: Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Polonius, Horatio, Coriolanus, and Ophelia.