From 2009 to 2014, she served as Deputy Head of Lighting at the Schauspiel Hannover, where she worked with Lars-Ole Walburg, Tina Lanik, Tom Kühnel, and Heike M. Goetze. She periodically supports school theatre projects, and youth dance initiatives, gala concerts, and festival productions in theatre and dance. In 2012, she designed the lighting for Tristan and Isolde at the Stadttheater Minden with Matthias von Stegmann, and in 2013, she accompanied Olivier Tambosi to the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki. From the summer of 2014 until the beginning of the 2015/16 season, she was Deputy Head of the Lighting Department at the Luzerner Theater. From September 2015 to September 2017, she served as Lighting Master at the Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen, where she was responsible for the lighting in Bridget Breiner's ballet Prospero's Island, as well as for lighting and projections for Kevin O'Day's The Little Match Girl, and most recently, for the ballet evening The Rest is Dance, with choreographers Marguerite Donlon, Renato Paroni de Castro, and Pontus Lidberg. This collaboration has also taken her to Ireland and Germany with other joint produń Opera House. In November 2017, she staged the four-part ballet evening Old, New, Borrowed, Blue, featuring choreographies by David Dawson, Uwe Scholz, Bridget Breiner, and Jiří Kylián for the Musiktheater im Revier.

 

In addition to her focus on dance, she has increasingly developed lighting concepts for music theatre, most recently spotlighting the visually striking production of Don Giovanni in Gelsenkirchen, as well as Ben Baur's beautiful Il Trovatore at the Graz Opera, and this April, Il Pirata at the Theater St. Gallen. Her freelance work as a lighting designer has taken her to various productions at the Theater Augsburg, Theater Hagen, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and to the premieres of the music theatre Penelopeia - A Different Story in Zurich and Basel.

After Gelsenkirchen, she worked as a lighting inspector and designer at the Staatstheater Stuttgart from 2017 to 2019, where she focused particularly on productions for the Stuttgarter Ballett, such as Romeo and Juliet, as well as various opera productions, including Don Pasquale. From April 2019 to September 2024, she served as Head of Department and Principal Lighting Designer at the Mainfranken Theater Würzburg. In this role, she played a key part in planning and implementing new construction and renovation projects and was responsible for the lighting design of numerous successful productions, including Rigoletto, Eugene Onegin, Kreis um die Sonne, Riss durch die Welt, Evita, Hansel and Gretel, Götterdämmerung, The Golden Dragon, and Emilia Galotti.

 

With her impressive list of engagements, including the Luzerner Theater, Schauspiel Hannover, and Schauspiel Dortmund, she has gained extensive experience in lighting design for theatre, ballet, and music theatre. Her work has also received recognition, including the German Theatre Prize Der Faust for Noch 5 Minuten at JES Stuttgart in 2009. In addition to her practical work, she has pursued continuous further education, including master's degree in event technology with a focus on lighting and stage design. Her technical expertise, combined with her creative vision, make her a highly sought-after professional in the industry. In her free time, she is involved in various cultural projects and enjoys activities such as cycling, hiking, and playing music. Her passion for theatre and the arts is evident in every project she undertakes, inspiring both audiences and her teams.

Mariella von Vequel-Westernach is an innovative lighting designer who enriches the theatre landscape with her expertise and dedication, consistently setting new standards through her passion for the art form.

In recent years, she has increasingly immersed herself in the world of architectural lighting. This summer, she created the lightning atmospheres for Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder, directed by intendant Markus Dietze at the Theater Koblenz, as well as for the dance performance Let's Dance, in collaboration with the choreographer and company director Steffen Fuchs.