Melissa was one of seven students accepted into the Advanced Theater Costume Design program at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. Four scripts were chosen and each student had one character per play to design from head to toe. After extensive research on the time periods, many ideation sketches, multiple test garments, and countless hours of creating head pieces, masks, accessories and historical garments; all of the work was featured in a four show run at the Barker Hanger in Santa Monica and broadcasted live on Youtube.