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Background
My route into becoming a Theatre Designer started with working as a freelance commercial model/prop maker in London. I was always interested in theatre design and decided to take an evening course in Theatre Design at the Westminster Institute. It was there, in 1989 that I was recommended by my tutor, designer Arianne Gastambide, to Loose Change Theatre Company, becoming their assistant designer and a company member, and I also became her design assistant on Winters Tale with Complicite Theatre Company. I followed this by completing a Postgraduate Diploma at Nottingham Trent University in 1993 after which I moved back to London to design for a variety of theatre companies and drama schools, namely, Arts Educational London Schools, Mountview and ALRA.
Since moving to Derbyshire I’ve diversified into applying my design skills to contemporary dance, and creating interactive sculptural installations for performance and public participation projects. During lockdown, I was commissioned by Beam and Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Sites (UNESCO), as part of Great Places Scheme, to write, direct and produce a short play, The London Mothers. I also designed its back projections blending archive photographs from my research, with film to create the different settings.
Design Credits include:
BALANCE NationalTour - Keneish Dance. Costume Designer/Maker and Mask Maker. Choreographer Keisha Grant. Tour: Resonate Festival at Warwick University, Timber Festival in Leicestershire, Yorkshire Fossil Festival, Think Tank Museum in Birmingham, Bromwich Hall, Sandwell Museums and Crawick Multiverse, Scotland.
Here, There, Everywhere - Contact Dance Company, Shropshire Inclusive Dance - Costume and Set Designer. The Hive, Shrewsbury and pop-up festival performances including Shrewsbury Food Festival. Introducing the Pramaphone sound machine.
BALANCE R & D Phase 2 - Keneish Dance. Core Theatre as part of Small is Beautiful event. We were given a micro - commission by Solihull Council to develop a small excerpt of BALANCE. The above costumes explore the bone marrow (outer layer) and how the Neutrophil immune cells, squeeze out of it (worn underneath).
BALANCE Phase 1 R & D - Keneish Dance Company in collaboration with Warwick University. Visual artist and sculptural costume designer developing ideas that explore the bodies senses and movement, cell regeneration and achieving balance in the worlds harsh environment. The Zorb ball allowed the dancer to interact from within a large ‘cell’ with other dancers in the manner of cells. Resonate Festival, Warwick University and World Dance Congress, Dora Stratou Dance Theatre, Athens, Greece.
Forest of Dreams - National Tour. Choreographer Payal Ramchandani, R & D Kuchipudi dance (See Design Page) - Sculptural Costume Designer/Maker for contemporary dancers. National Tour - Kala Sangam, Bradford. The Lowry, Manchester. MAC, Birmingham. Dance City in Newcastle and Seaton Delaval Hall and Climate Action Day, Northumberland. Capstone Theatre, Liverpool.
African Sanctus - Keneish Dance, Symphony Hall Birmingham with the CBSO and Excathedra Choir. Conductor Jeffrey Skinner. Set and Costume Design. Choreographer Keisha Grant. (See Design Page). It was also performed at Sheffield Octagon.
Just Enough Madness R & D Dance/Theatre - Initial Set Designs with Kuchipudi Dancer and Choreographer Payal Ramchandani.
Xaymaca - Keneish Dance. R & D Heritage project in partnership with Birmingham Museums, exploring the original Jamaican tribes. Design consultant for R & D.
Sensation - Keneish Dance with Choreographer Keisha Grant. Costume Design and Making for a developmental piece. (See Design Page)
The London Mothers - Projection Design, Writer and Director- Heritage commission from Beam and Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Sites. Live performance filmed for online screening in Derby Theatre Studio in partnership with Derby University. (above)
This is Derby - (Outside Event) - Walk the Plank, Salford and Derby County Community Trust and Derby Theatre and Deda, Artcore and Derby Sinfonia. Set Designer and Costume Designer/Community Co-ordinator for procession and performance stage/area. The theme was Urban Jungle with community each group wearing a different animal/jungle insect element and the market square transformed into an urban jungle with lamp posts dressed as palm trees and aerial artists dressed as insects. The lamp posts were transformed into palm trees using hessian. Graffiti was painted by Baby People and I led workshops with community and youth groups to create their individual identities.
Lullaby Sonic Cradle - Manasamitra Arts Organisation. - National Tour including the Sage, Gateshead and South Bank. Interactive Sculptural Set Designer. (See above and Design Page))
African Sanctus - Keneish Dance and Sheffield Oratorio Choir. Sheffield Octagon and tour. Costume Designer and Maker (See Design Page)
High I'm - Keneish Dance. Sheffield Octagon Centre. Costume Designer (See Design Page)
Cinderella’s Last Ball Pantomime - Deda, Derby. 3D Derby Deaf Drama. Directed by Red Earth Theatre. (See Design Page)
VIGOUR, National Tour, Like a Thorn in my Side, All Seeing, and tit 4 tat - Keneish Dance. (African/ Contemporary Dance). Costume Designer/Maker and Sculptural Artist in collaboration with Choreographer Keisha Grant. – Venues included. MIMA (Installation in Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art), MAC, Birmingham, ARC, (Stockton on Tees), Theatre Severn and Rich Mix, London. (See Design Page)
Midsummers Night Dream - Belper North Mill. Derbyshire - Costume Design and Community Making Workshops for 1623 Theatre Company.
SKY, LEVEL, Spiral Performance Company. (above) Costume Designer Maker & Movement Collaborator/Performer. Choreographer & Director Katie Ward (See Design Page)
DandeLion, LEVEL. (learning disabled arts organisation).- (above) Visual Design/Making, Production and Movement Collaborator/Performer. Director Katie Ward (See Design Page)
Like a Thorn in My Side, Sculptural Installation, Keneish Dance. Sculptural Artist. MAC Birmingham Arts Festival. Choreographer Keisha Grant
Jack and the Beanstalk Pantomime, Theatre Works, Derbyshire - Costume Designer, Giant Designer, Golden Goose designer and maker. Director Kirsty William
Aladdin Pantomime, Theatre Works, Derbyshire, Costume Designer. Director Kirsty Williams (above.
Day of the Dead ,Arts Festival Parade, Bakewell, Babbling Vagabonds Theatre Co – Carnival Costume Designer and Costume & Workshop Leader creating costumes, masks and costumes with community groups. (above.
Linda di Chamounix by Donzetti - Opera South, Sussex. Director Andrea Dixon – Set and Costume Designer. The play was set in the rural region of Chamonix in France and fashionable Paris during the 1920’s, (above).
Chorus of Disapproval by Alan Aykbourn, Mountview Theatre School, London. - Set & Costume Designer
Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler - Mountview Theatre School. Director Paul Clements - Set & Costume Designer. (Above). I wanted a sense of dampness, wet drains lit by a gas street light and glimpses of the outside world through out of reach metal bars in windows and locked doors. To create maximum impact, I designed the barbers chair to fold back and shoot the body out through the oven door in front of the audience, instead of down into the stage.
London Academy of Live and Recorded Arts - Resident Scenic Artist /Tutor. Designs included: Bazaar & Rummage, The House of Bernardo Alba, Loves Labours Lost and Daisy Pulls it Off (painting of portrait with glowing sphere above)
Resident Set and Costume Designer at Arts Ed - Arts Educational London Schools. Productions included:
Fiddler on the Roof by Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, Director Ian Watts-Smith - Costume and Set Designer (Above). The set is based on the many temporary small 19th century Russian villages or shtetls, where Jewish communities lived in isolation. A common factor was the boundaries created by wooden fencing around the villages, to discourage unwanted visitors and enclose the community from nearby towns.
Tess, (Adaptation of Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy) Director Michael Fry - Set and Costume Designer (Above)
The Power of Darkness by Leo Tolstoy. Director Terrie Fender - Set and Costume Designer (Above). The set is designed in the shape of a cross to reflect the moral boundaries of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Mariner by Don Nigro. Director Nicholas Tudor - Set and Costume Designer (Above)
The Boys Next Door by Tom Griffen. Director David Robson - Set and Costume Designer
Nine, musical by Arthur Kopit and Mario Fratti. Director Paul Meade - Set and Costume Designer. (Above)
The Moon under Water – 15 min B&W 16mm Film. Director and Writer Marco Chiandetti.- Production Designer.
Glasses Break - 15 min B & W 16mm Film - Artistic Director.
Antigone by Sophocles, Tara Arts Theatre Co. Director Janet Steel - Set and Costume Designer (above).
Toto, Tara Arts Theatre Co. Devised Workshop Production - Designer. Director Janet Steel
Spinning Jenny, Battersea Arts Centre Youth Theatre (above). Written and Directed by Janet Steel. (Devised production of the history of the cotton industry) - Set and Costume Designer.
The Scratch, Battersea Arts Centre Youth Theatre (above) – Devised production about gambling addiction and scratch cards. Written and Directed by Janet Steel. - Set and Costume Design.
The Cell Net, Asian Women Writers Collective, Oval House Theatre - Lighting Designer (above), Directed by Janet Steel. Written and performed by Susanne Gorman.
Exploring Sickle Cell - “A woman in violation, bound by her own physical condition seeks to explore her own identity through the concept of blood as a physical and spiritual signifier of race, religion and culture.”
Resident Set & Costume Designer at Manitou Summer Theatre School, Ontario, Canada. Resident Director Andrea Dixon. Plays and dance include: Caged Birds (above), with rope swings creating a cage and Rabbit (above), in a post-nuclear war setting, seen above. As well as Dream Jobs, In Need of Care and Fame, the musical.
Brilliant Traces, Ursa Major Theatre Co. Director John Longenbaugh, The Bear Theatre - Set and Costume Designer (above). The setting is a snow bound cabin during a storm.
The Protagonist, Southwark Playhouse. Director Mehmet Ergen - Costume Designer.
The Slow Approach of Night (based on a novel by Jean Rhys (above) Arts Threshold. Director Sarah Alexander- Set and Costume Designer. A multi-functional set, moving from a damp flat in London, a Parisian nightclub in the 1920’s to Domenica in the West Indies.
Nottingham Trent University - Post Graduate Diploma in Theatre Design.
Cain, Two Way Mirror Company - Costume Designer.
The Mayor of Casterbridge, Du Bois Theatre Co., Turtle Key Arts and Richmond Arts Festival. (Devised adaptation of novel by Thomas Hardy). Director Jo Carter - Set and Costume Designer (above)
Sea for Sky, Circus Space UK Tour . Director Pete Brookes - Costume Designer.
The Colour of August, Loose Change Theatre Co. -- Set Designer. Oval House. Director Tessa Schneideman. (Company member of Loose Change and Assistant Designer for three years).
Assistant Design work includes:
Adam and Eva and the Raging Angels, Loose Change Theatre Company, Oval Theatre. Director Tessa Schneiderman and assistant to Jacqueline Morreau. I sculpted the heads and dressed the life-size puppets of Hitler and Eva Braun (above).
Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare, Complicitie Theatre Company. Director Annabel Arden and designer Arianne Gastambide. International Tour.
Sleep of Reason, Loose Change Theatre Company, Battersea Arts Centre. Director Tessa Schneiderman, - Assistant designer to Jan Blake
Burning Patience (British premier), Loose Change Theatre Company at Soho Theatre. Director Tessa Schneiderman and assistant designer to Jan Blake
Freelance researcher and art department assistant. Clients include Scala Films, Proteus feature film, Toronto, Swivel Films - Assistant Music Video Art Directing
Freelance commercial model and prop and costume making. Clients included BBC, British Airways, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Kodak. Museums including the Imperial War Museum and The Bourneville Museum.
Famous People Players Company, Toronto Canada. (Black Light Theatre working with life-size foam puppets alongside learning disabled performers) - Prop Maker