Alex Marker
Alex trained in stage design at Wimbledon School Of Art. He has designed over 150 productions for a wide variety of theatre spaces including the West End, fringe, regional national tours and site specific. Recent designs include: Don’t Destroy Me (Arcola Theatre), It’s Her Turn Now, Funny Money and The House on Cold Hill (The Mill at Sonning), Yours Unfaithfully (Jermyn Street), Boris III, Fox, The Red (Pleasance, Edinburgh), Harpy (National Tour), The Firm, The Meeting (Hampstead Theatre), The Odd Couple (Vienna’s English Theatre), Can’t Buy You Love, London Calling (Salisbury Playhouse), Staircase, Bodies, What the Women Did, The Cutting of the Cloth, The Fifth Column and A Day by the Sea (Southwark Playhouse). Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense (The Theatre, Chipping Norton Theatre/The Barn Theatre Cirencester), Sherlock Holmes and the Crimson Cobbles, Around the World in 80 Days (The Theatre Chipping Norton and touring), Tape, My Real War 1914- ? (Trafalgar Studios). He has been nominated in the best set design category for the Off West End Awards 7 times.
Since 2001 Alex has been resident designer at the Finborough Theatre, where he has designed 40 productions including: Jane Clegg, Lark Rise to Candleford, Red Night, Untitled, Me and Juliet, Death of Long Pig, London Wall (and transfer to St James Theatre), The White Carnation (and transfer to Jermyn Street), Dream of the Dog (and transfer to Trafalgar Studios) and Plague Over England (and transfer to the Duchess Theatre) and most of James Graham’s early plays. At the Finborough he also directed Portraits by William Douglas Home and the first production for over 60 years of J. B. Priestley’s play, Summer Day’s Dream.
Alex has taught stage design and theatre craft subjects for a wide variety of institutions including: Kingston College, The University of West London and Drama Studio London. He has taught guest sessions for many other organisations including The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Open Stages initiative. He has also designed many graduate productions for a variety of drama schools including: LAMDA, Arts Educational and Drama Studio London.
In addition to the above he is also currently Artistic Director of The Questors Theatre in, a large amateur theatre in West London who stage 18 full productions a year split across two performance spaces. He still occasionally finds time to appear in plays, most recently as Blind Pugh and Benn Gunn in Treasure Island and Squire Allworthy in Tom Jones.
Occasionally he makes elaborate scale model dioramas for Mischief Theatre’s ‘Goes Wrong’ TV appearances, but they always seem to end up destroying them! He is also director of the Questors Youth Theatre, the largest non agency run youth theatre in Britain.
Session: Setting the Scene
A practical and fun course for everyone who would like to develop their knowledge and skills in creative set design for performance whether that be for theatre, site specific, plays, musicals, operas or immersive performance. During the course you will work with performance texts to develop your creative and practical skills. In an exciting collaboration each set design student will partner with a costume design student and work together in partnership to develop your production vision.
During the course you will:
- explore and develop your creative process
- learn a range of practical design skills
- develop your researching focus
- collaborate with a costume design student throughout the course
- develop your skills in effectively communicating your creative ideas
- and importantly you will have fun!
No previous experience or creative skills are required, the course is about exploration and having fun with the creative process.
Please note students might need to provide some materials/equipment for the course but we will endeavour to keep costs to a minimum.