Mello, Robin

Professor, Theatre
Chair, Department of Theatre


Dr. Robin Mello is a Professor of Theatre at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her teaching and research focuses extensively on communicating science and history through theatre and storytelling.

She began her tenure by creating and directing the K - 12 Theatre Education Program at UWM. Her recent original theatre works include CINDERELLA 30,000, A COSMIC WEB, and ORPHAN TRAIN, (a devised piece about the lived experience of the Orphan Train Movement, 1853-1929). Her research projects include Tale of Scale, Sharing Wisconsin the Sky: Indigenous Voices, and Star Stories (all STE(A)M projects with collaborator Dr. Jean Creighton, Director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium).

Robin's dynamic approach also influenced The Penelope Project, were she contributed as actor, dramaturge, and program evaluator. She details this experience in The Penelope Project: An Arts-Based Odyssey (2016). She is currently working on her book/manuscript Devising ORPHAN TRAIN: Staging the history and stories of Orphan Train riders (1853-1929).

Mello's work has been supported by a wide range of grants and commissions including: ArtsEco, CAMPAC, Carnegie Foundation's Teachers for a New Era, Ezra J. Keats Foundation, Little Red Schoolhouse Project, NASA’s Wisconsin Space Science Consortium, National Storytelling Network, National Women's Hall of Fame, New England Touring Arts Program, Maine Touring Artists Program, US State Department, UWM Office of Research & Sponsored Programs, University System of Wisconsin, Very Special Arts - Americans for the Arts, Wisconsin Arts, and the Wisconsin Humanities Council.