Report by Branko Popovic
The Scenography & Costume Design program at the Maastricht Theater Academy isn’t focused on a single specialization, but rather on the full spectrum of theater design.
This year, four exceptional students graduated. Their work was on display at Bureau Europa during Festival Gemaakt in three parts: a collaborative design assignment for the play Cabaret, a largely autonomous installation piece based on their essay, and a practical project of their own choosing. Together, these three components provide a complete picture of who these creators are and where their artistic passions lie.
The Group Project: Cabaret
All four students were tasked with developing a complete set and/or costume design for Cabaret, a play that demands great ambition not only in terms of content but also visually. The designs can be viewed at toneelacademie.nl and show how four different creators approach the same starting point in radically different ways.
Manon Verniers literally places the audience right in the midst of the KitKat Boys and Girls; what begins as a lively party soon reveals itself to be something far less innocent. With a minimalist set, a light show, and live camera footage, the atmosphere is constantly intensified. Her costumes draw inspiration from various time periods: a deliberate choice to show that this story is timeless.
Marte Morel brings Cabaret into the here and now. In her interpretation, the Kit Kat Club is shabby but cheerful—a sanctuary for people who have nowhere else to go. Through photography and hand-drawn designs, she blends costumes together, with hints of the 1920s and the present day. For Marte, Cabaret is not a historical story. It is a story of today.
Ine Roeder starts with an urgent question: what do you do in an emergency? She connects the stage and the audience in a spiral, so that the two literally merge—we’re all in the same boat. She translates the escapism of the Kit Kat Club into the circus: glitter, madness, and clownish costumes that create another world right under the audience’s feet.
Jonna Ave Mulder takes you on a journey to 1930s Berlin—a world somewhere between a photo album and a time machine, filled with smoke, stage lights, and the trapeze. It’s a place that seduces, engulfs, and holds you captive. Escape is not an option.
The installations
In addition to the group project, each student created an independent installation piece based on their essay. It is in these works that each artist’s individuality is most clearly evident.
‘Patrick’ by Marte Morel is a short film incorporated into an installation, based on her essay We Are All Ophelia. Inspired by director Sofia Coppola, Morel depicts a dreamlike, lonely world in which a young woman interacts with a head named Patrick, her own version of Wilson from the film Cast Away. The work is relatable, poetic, and offers a gentle perspective on the lives of young women.
‘Thanks to all things’ by Manon Verniers is an installation that gives objects a voice and gently shifts the human focus to the periphery. Verniers explores how an object can be made admirable on stage without anthropomorphizing it: how much space do you give to the object itself, and how much to your own imagination? The work is both playful and philosophical, and demonstrates her ability to create a world that exists between us and the objects.
‘By a Hug’ by Ine Roeder draws on an intimate and physical experience: her aversion to being touched on the back. In sharp, humorous prose, she describes how her spine reacts like a cross between a dragon and a guardian angel. The work is both personal and universal, relatable to anyone who knows what it feels like when the body has a mind of its own.
‘0 Void’ by Jonna Ave Mulder is an exploration of the human experience of space. Through a diorama featuring blocks and figures, she invites visitors to rediscover and reconnect with a sense of spatiality. Primordial forms, bathhouse rituals, liminal spaces, and the egg as an archetype come together in a mini-universe that feels both familiar and strange.
The students of the Class of 2026
Marte Morel is graduating as a costume designer with a colorful, playful, and authentic style. Her style is realistic, with an ironic nod to archetypes and political themes. She knows how to stylize actors with a keen sense of proportion and regularly challenges her audience, whether through bare skin or a costume you rarely see outside the theater.
Jonna Ave Mulder is an independent artist and set designer, shaped by the Swiss mountains, the fields of Groningen, and two parents who are architects. She creates from the conviction that people are beings of space, searching for a sense of security. Through her monumental works, she seeks to comfort and amaze the viewer.
Ine Roeder is a set designer, lighting designer, and technician. She studied stage technology at RITCS in Brussels and completed part of her studies at the theater department of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She has worked as a technician and lighting designer for artists such as Ika Schwander and Judith Engelen, and her lighting design for *Swan Songs* was named Lighting Design of the Year in 2025 by a member of Etcetera. In 2026, she was nominated for the Harry Wich Stipendium. In her work, she combines lighting, sound, set design, and technology to create experiences at the intersection of realism and abstraction.
Manon Verniers is a theater artist, set designer, and costume designer. She creates absurdist worlds where hybrid figures—part human, part object—can exist, primary colors come to life as vivid scenes, and the black box transforms into a playground. She studied interior design at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels, then trained as a furniture maker at Syntra Brussels, and graduated from the Maastricht Theater Academy in 2026. Humor as a form of radical resistance, collective creation, and multidisciplinary collaboration are the pillars of her practice.
More information about the students and their portfolios: toneelacademie.nl
Maastricht Theater Academy
The Scenography & Costume Design program at the Maastricht Theater Academy stands out from all comparable programs in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany due to its international focus, the scale of the productions on which students work, and the unique opportunity to specialize in both scenography and costume design simultaneously. Throughout their studies, students actively build an international network through Erasmus exchanges, internships at renowned theaters, and classes taught by international guest lecturers.
Photography: Branko Popovic
