Paule Constable is a British lighting designer. She is an Associate Director for the National Theatre, the Lyric Hammersmith and Matthew Bourne's company New Adventures.
Originally from North Devon and grown up in a military family, Constable moved across various countries in her youth. [1] Constable thought about pursuing her studies in architecture, then pursuing an English degree at Goldsmiths' College, London. [2] Influenced by the art scene in London in the 1980s, she then decided to combine English with Drama, graduating in 1989, [3] while working in the music business. [4] She has since become a Goldsmith fellow, as well as of Rose Bruford College and Central School of Speech and Drama. [5]
Constable started her career while studying, working for Midnight Design on rock' n' roll concerts design, while starting to develop an interest in the theatre. [6] [7]
Her "big break" came with show The Street of Crocodiles at the National Theatre, for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design at age 26. She also worked on operas, as well as in the theatre, and collaborated extensively with the Royal Opera, English National Opera, Glyndebourne, Opera North, Scottish Opera and Welsh National Opera.
Constable won the 2005, 2006, 2009, 2013, 2020 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design. [8] She was also a nominee for four further productions and for a 2007 Tony Award on Broadway. In 2011 she won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a play for War Horse.
Abroad she has worked in Paris, Salzburg, Strasbourg, Berlin, Brussels, New Zealand, Dallas and Houston. For the Metropolitan Opera in New York she has designed lighting for Satyagraha , Anna Bolena , Don Giovanni , Giulio Cesare , The Marriage of Figaro , and others. [9]
She has created fifteen productions at the National Theatre, including Paul . Her lighting designs are regularly seen at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Donmar Warehouse, the Royal Court Theatre and with Théâtre de Complicité. In the West End she lit Evita , Don Carlos , The Weir and Amadeus (also Broadway, 1999 LA Critics' Award winner).[ citation needed ]
Theatre-dance productions in Britain and abroad include productions for Matthew Bourne, Will Tuckett and Adam Cooper.[ citation needed ]
Constable was the lighting designer for the 2010 25th Anniversary Touring Production of Les Misérables, staged at the Barbican Centre in London. A DVD of the live concert performance at the O2 on 3 October has been released. In 2011, this production performed at the Ahmanson Theatre and Constable won the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Lighting Design. [10]
Constable won Tony awards for her work on War Horse in 2011 and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in 2015. [4]
For the National Theatre:
In London's West End:
Constable is also well known for being an advocate and supporting women working in theatre. She is only one of two women who have received the Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design. In an interview she commented: “Women still aren’t represented as well as they should be in theatre. It’s a very male-dominated industry and we need to change that." [1]
Judy Kuhn is an American actress, singer and activist, known for her work in musical theatre. A four-time Tony Award nominee, she has released four studio albums and sang the title role in the 1995 film Pocahontas, including her rendition of the song "Colors of the Wind", which won its composers the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
David Hersey is a lighting designer who has designed the lighting for over 250 plays, musicals, operas, and ballets. His work has been seen in most corners of the globe and his awards include the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for Evita, Cats, and Les Misérables, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for Cats, Miss Saigon, and Equus, and the 1996 Laurence Olivier Award for Lighting Design.
This is a list of winners and nominations for the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for outstanding lighting design of a play or musical. The award was first presented in 1970. Since 2005, the category was divided into Lighting Design in a Play and Lighting Design in a Musical with each genre receiving its own award.
Jenna Russell is an English actress and singer. She has appeared on the stage in London in both musicals and dramas, as well as appearing with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She performed the role of Dot in Sunday in the Park with George in the West End and on Broadway, receiving the Tony Award nomination and the 2006 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role. She has also appeared in several television series, including Born and Bred and EastEnders.
Mark Henderson is a British lighting designer who won the 2006 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for The History Boys.
Tracie Bennett is an English singer and stage and television actress. She trained at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in Clapham, London. She played the role of Sharon Gaskell in Coronation Street from 1982 to 1984, returning to the role in 1999 and again in 2021.
John Napier is a set designer for Broadway and London theatrical performances.
John Newport Caird is an English stage director and writer of plays, musicals and operas. He is an honorary associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, was for many years a regular director with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and is the principal guest director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm (Dramaten).
Natasha Katz is an American lighting designer for the theatre, dance, and opera.
Coram Boy is a play written by Helen Edmundson with music composed by Adrian Sutton, based on the 2000 children's novel of the same name by Jamila Gavin, an epic adventure that concerns the theme of child cruelty. The play is called a "play with music", rather than a musical.
War Horse is a play based on the book of the same name by writer Michael Morpurgo, adapted for stage by Nick Stafford. Originally Morpurgo thought "they must be mad" to try to make a play from his best-selling 1982 novel; but the play was a great success. The play's West End and Broadway productions are directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris; it features life-size horse puppets by the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa, the movements of which were choreographed by Toby Sedgwick.
His Dark Materials is a play written by British playwright Nicholas Wright, adapted from the Philip Pullman fantasy novel trilogy of the same title. The production premiered in the Royal National Theatre's Olivier Theatre, London, in 2003. Due to the complications in staging a piece containing the narrative of three books, the play was performed in two parts in alternate performances. The play is published by Nick Hern Books.
The Laurence Olivier Awards, or simply TheOlivier Awards, are presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre in London. The awards were originally known as the Society of West End Theatre Awards, but they were renamed in honour of the British actor of the same name in 1984.
Rick Fisher is an American lighting designer, known for his work with Stephen Daldry on Billy Elliot the Musical and An Inspector Calls. He is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and attended Dickinson College, but has been based in the UK for the last 30 years.
Anthony Ward is a British theatre designer specializing in set and costume design. He studied theatre design at Wimbledon School of Art.
Paul Pyant is a British lighting designer, whose designs have been featured in the West End, on Broadway and in opera houses around the world. He has been nominated for several Olivier Awards and Tony Awards, winning the Olivier in 2014 for his design for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Marianne Phoebe Elliott is a British theatre director and producer who works on the West End and Broadway. She has received numerous accolades including two Laurence Olivier Awards and four Tony Awards.
Jonathan Richard Driscoll is an English Olivier Award-winning and Tony-nominated theatre projection designer and lighting designer working in the West End and on Broadway. He is a Technical Associate of the National Theatre in London.
Fifty-Nine Productions is a design studio with offices located in London and New York City.
Rae Smith is a British set and costume designer who has worked frequently in theatre and Live Art. Her designs can be seen in the Opera Rigoletto which received a South Bank Sky Arts Award as did ‘’[Uncle Vanya ] film and West End Production in 2022. Saint Joan, an Obie Award for Oliver Twist and an Irish Times award for An Ideal Husband. Smith was nominated for Laurence Olivier Awards for The Light Princess, Uncle Vanya and Rosmersholm. Her work on the set of War Horse received particular praise and she received an Olivier, Tony, Evening Standard, Toronto Critics and Drama Desk Special Award. Smith has also worked on several operas and ballets.