Ailsa completed the Bachelor of Dramatic Art in Design (NIDA) in 2003. Costume Design credits for Slinsgby include Slingsby’s Flying Squad; The Boy Who Talked To Dogs; Emil and the Detectives; Mouse, Bird and Sausage; You, Me and the Bloody Sea and Ode to Nonsense. Design credits for State Theatre Company of SA include Sense and Sensibility, Switzerland, The 39 Steps, Beckett Triptych (Footfalls, Eh Joe, Krapp’s Last Tape), The Importance of Being Earnest, In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play, War Mother, The Ham Funeral, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), The Price and The Cripple of Inishmaan.  Costume Design credits include A Doll’s House, Things I Know to be True, Little Bird, The Seagull and Three Sisters. Other theatre design credits include The 39 Steps (Queensland Theatre), Yo Diddle Diddle and Cranky Bear (Patch), Vigil (Adelaide Cabaret Festival), Debut5 and Naturally (Restless) and Cloudstreet! (Costume Design, State Opera of SA).

Ailsa received the 2011 Mike Walsh Fellowship.