Nina Lepilina was born in Moscow and studied costume design at MCHAT (Moscow Art Theatre), where she subsequently worked from 1992 to 1994. This was followed by collaboration with Moidele Bickel on the costume design for Peter Stein's »The Oresteia« in Moscow. In 1995, she accepted an invitation from Heiner Müller and joined the Berliner Ensemble as a guest. Since then, she has been working as a freelance costume designer.
Engagements for theatre, opera and dance took her to Berlin's Theater am Halleschen Ufer, Volksbühne, Deutsches Theater/Kammerspiele, Jewish Museum and Konzerthaus Berlin, to Hanover's State Opera, Ballet and Theatre, to the Hans Otto Theatre in Potsdam, the Graz Opera and the Bonn Opera, and to theatres in Lucerne, Freiburg and Lübeck. She worked for the Novosibirsk State Opera as part of a co-production of the Russian Culture Days with the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2004, she was awarded the Golden Mask Theatre Prize for her set design for the production »Living with an Idiot« in Moscow.
After »The Love for Three Oranges«, »María de Buenos Aires« is her second collaboration with director Guillermo Amaya at the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg.