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Marcella Kearns posed next to a statute.

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Marcella Kearns

  • Lecturer, Theatre

Education

MFA, Acting, University of South Carolina
Fulbright Fellowship, Dramatic Literature, University of Vienna
BA, English, Canisius College

Biography

Marcella Kearns serves in multiple capacities in the theatre industry: director, administrator, educator, and actor. Though she’s based in Milwaukee, she splits her time between Milwaukee and Madison, where she serves as Artistic Associate on the staff of Forward Theater Company. A member of Actors’ Equity Association, she holds a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of South Carolina and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Canisius University. She completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Vienna, Austria, studying playwright Arthur Schnitzler and, as a side project, contemporary productions of Shakespeare in German. As the former Education Director of Milwaukee Shakespeare, she was awarded a Theatre Communications Group Observership on Shakespeare training for educators. 

Selected directing credits include projects for Utah Shakespeare Festival, Forward Theater Company, Children’s Theater of Madison, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Third Avenue PlayWorks, First Stage, Door Shakespeare, Marquette University, Carthage College, and UW-Milwaukee, including the world premieres of the verbatim piece Fighting for Home: Stories of Women Who Serve and Alice Austen’s Girls in the Boat. In 2020, Broadway World acknowledged her as Director of a Play of the Decade in 2020 for her production of Mockingbird at First Stage in 2017, and she was honored with an ACTF Certificate of Merit— Director of a New Work— for her production of Fighting for Home. Her reflection on directing a production during the early days of the pandemic is featured in the Marquette University Press publication On the Vocation of the Educator in This Moment.

As an actor locally, Marcella has appeared at such theaters as Forward, MCT, First Stage, Renaissance Theaterworks, and the Milwaukee Rep. She originated a monologue by Christopher Durang in Forward Theater’s inaugural Monologue Festival, The Love That Changed My Life, and the role of Mrs. Hudson in Eric Coble’s Sherlock Holmes: The Baker Street Irregulars, adapted from the graphic novels of Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood.

In academia, she is serving during the 2025-2026 year as a Lecturer at UW-Milwaukee and part of the core faculty of First Stage’s acclaimed Young Company. Her primary focus of instruction is in Shakespeare and Pre-Modern performance practices.

Curriculum Vitae, CV (PDF)

Recent & Selected Works

Speaker stands at a podium gesturing beside a display board of Artemisia Gentileschi paintings, with a red curtain backdrop and projected logo.
Kearns’ pre-show lecture on Forward’s world premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s ARTEMISIA.
Coach speaks face-to-face with a young athlete on indoor turf.
THE WOLVES at Renaissance Theaterworks, featuring Kearns. Photo by Ross Zentner.
Two stage actors in period costumes stand in an illustrated room with bookshelves and a lit fireplace, facing each other during a play.
THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP at Third Avenue PlayWorks, directed by Kearns, featuring Karen Estrada and Natalie Rich. Photo by Cody LeSage.
One costumed performer cradles another lying on the floor, both in colorful medieval-style outfits on a dark theater set.
HENRY IV at Utah Shakespeare Festival (Shakespeare in Schools tour), directed by Kearns, featuring Lucas Prizant and Elijah Hernandez.

Plays & Musicals

  • Majok, Martyna. Ironbound. Directed by Marcella Kearns, Forward Theater, 29 Jan. - 15 Feb. 2026, Overture Center for the Arts, Madison, WI.
  • Shakespeare, William. King Henry IV. Directed by Marcella Kearns, Utah Shakespeare Festival, January 2025, Shakespeare in Schools Tour, UT.
  • Johnston, Cara. The Great White Throne (reading). Directed by Maria Amenábar Fárias, featuring Marcella Kearns and Libby Amato, Renaissance Theaterworks, May 2025, Milwaukee, WI.