After obtaining a BFA  in drawing and painting from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in her native country, Milagros Ponce de León came to the University of Maryland for her MFA in drawing and painting. It was there, in her final semester, that the trajectory of her professional and artistic life completely changed. One day, on a whim, she decided to walk into the university’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies.

“It absolutely blew my head away,” she says. “There were about 15 people loading a giant set with beautiful windows. For a solo artist, that felt like such a crowd—but I realized then that I wanted that, that I had been seeking collaboration, the exchange of ideas.”

Ponce de León immediately signed up for a class in scenic design. That led to a master’s degree in scenic design, also at University of Maryland, and kicked off a robust freelance career designing sets for plays and musicals in the Washington, D.C., area and beyond, and teaching scenic design at Stevenson University in Owings Mills, Md.  

She came to Penn State to teach scenic design in 2010; 12 years later, Ponce de León met Connor Gallagher, director of a forthcoming show for Disney Live Entertainment aboard a new Disney cruise ship under construction at the time. “We met, we talked about the project, and that was that,” she says. 

Working on the premiere of the production of Disney: The Tale of Moana on the Disney Treasure ship has been a rewarding experience for Ponce de León on various levels, starting with the sheer magnitude of the ship itself: “It’s a thing of beauty, with incredible art and artistry on the inside and outside. Every single space is about storytelling.” She loves the global nature of a Disney Cruise Line production. The Disney Treasure was built in Papenburg, Germany, the set was built in Hamburg, Germany, cast rehearsals happened in Toronto, and the production teched in the Netherlands. “These productions are created to live aboard these ships for five, eight, 10 years,” Ponce de León says. “It’s incredible to think that thousands of multigenerational families from all over the world might experience theater of this caliber for the first time in the middle of the ocean, and that experience could ignite a lifelong affair with the artform.”

Disney: The Tale of Moana is based on the Disney movie Moana, and it is the first adaptation of the movie for the stage. For her set designs, Ponce de León spent a lot of time researching museum collections and books on arts, navigation, and textiles of the Pacific Islands. 

Disney: The Tale of Moana won the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions’ 2025 Brass Ring Excellence Award for the most creative year-round theatrical production. In 2025, Ponce de León also designed sets for the production of Hercules aboard the Disney Destiny.