The Linbury Prize for stage design, run by the National Theatre and the Linbury Trust, is the major award for early-career stage designers. Many of the most important designers working today, Vicki Mortimer (who designed Nye for the National Theatre) and Es Devlin (Dear England) for instance, launched their careers through the Linbury Prize. Winners receive a bursary, and the National Theatre organises a placement for them to work professionally with a major stage designer.
This year’s recipients are:
Cal Owens
Emily Mahon
Haiyan Hester Xue
Isaac O’Brien
James Stibilj
Kathy Udaondo
Kezi Ferguson
Miriam Dheva-Aksorn
Willoughby Brow
Yi Gao
Yuhe Zhang
Zidi Wu
Their work is displayed in a free exhibition that will be in the National Theatre for the next few months. What’s impressive about this exhibition is the breadth of work on display. Across the twelve designers, completely different aesthetics, design languages and concepts appear.
It’s a more diverse prize than in previous years. After a successful drive to widen participation, it had the most applications ever and, for the first time, each of the four countries of the UK were represented – a success for a National Theatre trying to become truly national.
The exhibition shows every stage of the design process, allowing an idea to be followed from early mood boards and sketches all the way through to a model box and realised production. The model boxes (scale replicas of set designs) are particularly impressive, with designers able to miniaturise complicated ideas with wonderfully precise craftsmanship.
While there is a huge range in the designs exhibited, from concrete storm drains to oversized, surreally colourful houses, there are some common themes that seem to be top of mind for the next generation of set designers.
Firstly, sustainability is rightly at the heart of all the designs. Each of the twelve seems very conscious of making theatre in a way that doesn’t harm the planet. Sets are being designed with reusability in mind, and costumes often use recycled materials. Theatre has a bad track record on sustainability, so it’s good to see a new generation take it seriously.
Perhaps coming from the same concerns, industrial aesthetics such as concrete, rough metal surfaces and urban grime appear across a lot of the work. While there are some sublime, heavenly sets with light pouring in through glass, it seems the idea of cities in decay is firmly in the zeitgeist.
There’s also an exciting drive to reimagine older, especially Greek, texts across the work. In opera too, these designers are imagining and creating worlds for classical works that bring them into searing relevance for today.
That is what is most exciting about the Linbury Prize: the ambition of its designers. Across the work there’s a clear belief that theatre can be radical, sustainable and exciting. These designers aren’t just modelling future productions but a future of theatre. It’s easy to underestimate the role of the designer in making the theatre that moves us. This prize and exhibition recognise the crucial work designers do in shaping what stories we tell and how we tell them.
It’s well worth a visit to the National Theatre just to see this exhibition. The work is exceptional, and the future of set design is clearly very bright. This is exactly what our National Theatre should be doing: finding exciting talents and supporting them to take the leap into an industry that needs them.