Frederica Nascimento

Frederica Nascimento Biography

FREDERICA NASCIMENTO is a scenic, costume and production designer. Being an architect informs her work in theatre, opera, dance and film, focusing in the interaction between audience/performance, environment/objects and storytelling. She was born in Mozambique, has lived in Lisbon, Portugal, and New York, and is now based in Los Angeles.
Throughout her collaborative career she has had the honor of working with directors and artists including Pina Bausch, Robert Wilson, Wim Wenders, José Álvaro Morais, Manoel de Oliveira, Ruben Polendo, Bart DeLorenzo, Chris Fields, Simon Levy, Laurie Woolery, Johannes Wieland, Edison Woods, Annie Kaufman, Will Pomerantz, Abraham Celaya, Ron Sossi, Heather Woodbury, John Lawler, Anthony Dolan, Shishir Kurup, Jonathan Fox, Larry Biederman, Christine Menzies, Shirley Jo Finney, Jessica Kubzansky, Geoff Elliott, Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, Stephanie Shroyer, Armin Shimerman, Nike Doukas, Rogério de Carvalho, João Canijo, Paulo Ribeiro, Paulo Lages, João Mota, Nuno Carinhas, Nuno M. Cardoso, among others.
She is a resident artist at A Noise Within and collaborates with several theatre companies. Recent designs: All’s Well That Ends Well, Alice in Wonderland, Argonautika, Henry V, Othello, Arcadia, All My Sons, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Julius Caesar, The Threepenny Opera, Tartuffe (ANW); Measure for Measure, The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Antaeus Theatre); Fefu and Her Friends, The False Servant, Ivanov, and Passion Play (Odyssey Theatre).
Frederica is faculty at Los Angeles Pierce College, Los Angeles Southwest College, and CSUN, where she collaborates as scenic and costume designer with Larry Biederman and Christine Menzies. She was a guest scenic designer in a new production of In The Red And Brown Water by Tarell Alvin McCraney, directed by Shirley Jo Finney at the Department of Theater and Dance - UC Santa Barbara.
Frederica earned her MFA in Scenic and Production Design for Film at NYU with a Tisch School of The Arts Scholarship, and was awarded the Seidman Award for Excellence in Design. Graduated from the Superior School of Theatre and Cinema in Lisbon, IFICT Theatre Institute, and Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Lisbon. She is a scholar with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Luso-American Foundation, member of the Portuguese Architects Association, Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop, and a member of the United Scenic Artists USA 829, IATSE. Nominated for a NAACP Theatre Award in Scenic Design - Equity: The Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry by Marcus Gardley, Ovation Award in Scenic Design for Henry V, and a LA Drama Critics Circle Award in Scenic Design for Argonautika.
Frederica was part of the team bringing live theatre back to Los Angeles during the summer 2021 as scenic designer of the play An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at the Fountain Theatre, for which she received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award 2020-2021 in Best Set Design.
IG: @fredericanascimentodesign