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MICHAEL HOLT

Designer

Michael’s design career has taken him to theatres throughout the United Kingdom for productions of opera, ballet and drama. He has been associated with playwright Alan Ayckbourn at his theatre in Scarborough for over 20 years. His numerous designs for this author/director include Awaking Beauty, Trip To Scarborough, Intimate Exchanges, The Safari Party, What Every Woman Knows, Taking Steps, Wolf at the Door, Man of the Moment, Time and the Conways, and the much praised Othello with Michael Gambon. He also designed the American premiere of Alan Ayckbourn’s Season’s Greetings at the Joyce Theatre, New York.

Other international credits include Intimate Exchanges, New York; Woman in Black, Australia and New Zealand; opera productions for the Royal Opera House, Copenhagen, the Avignon Festival, the Knokke Opera Festival (Belgium), the Brisbane Festival in Australia; ballet designs for the Hong Kong Ballet company, and many plays for Den Nationale Scene, Bergen, Norway and the Alley Theatre, Houston, Texas. Most notable among his ballet designs are The Sleeping Beauty, Madam Butterfly and Romeo and Juliet for Northern Ballet.

Michael’s numerous designs for Opera include notable productions of La Boheme (Sadler’s Wells Theatre), Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd (Brisbane) and Vaughan Williams’ The Pilgrims Progress (the Royal Opera House).

West End credits include the long-running West End success The Woman in Black; Absurd Person Singular (Whitehall Theatre), The Glory of the Garden (Duke of York’s Theatre), Rough Justice (Apollo Theatre), and June Moon (Vaudeville Theatre). He designed Julius Caesar at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre and the highly successful centennial touring production of Charley’s Aunt.

Recent touring and repertory theatre includes: Taking Steps, Orange Tree Theatre; We'll Always Have Paris, Mill at Sonning; Shining City, Derby Live; Man of the Moment (part of the Ayckbourn season directed by Alan Ayckbourn), Royal and Derngate Theatres; Blithe Spirit, Oldham Coliseum; The Price, New Vic; These Four Streets, Birmingham Rep; My Brilliant Divorce, Nick Brooke Ltd; Tony And Twizzle The Glory Years, LipService; An Inspector Calls, Oldham Coliseum; Jane Bond, LipService; Cider With Rosie, New Vic Theatre; Bedroom Farce, Deadlock and Strangers on a Train, Nick Brooke Ltd; Misery, New Vic Theatre; Framed and Arsenic and Old Lace, Nick Brooke Ltd; A Chorus of Disapproval, Stephen Joseph Theatre; The Turn of the Screw and Driving Miss Daisy, Oldham Coliseum; Mixed Feelings, TEG Productions Ltd; House and Garden, Salisbury Playhouse; Way Upstream, Stephen Joseph Theatre; The Safari Party, Hampstead Theatre; Snakes and Ladders, TEG Theatre Productions; Just Between Ourselves and Taking Steps, Mill at Sonning Theatre; Romeo & Juliet and Big Maggie, for the New Victoria Theatre and The Things We Do For Love, Salisbury Playhouse.

Future productions include: Life of Riley and Communicating Doors directed by Alan Ayckbourn for the Stephen Joseph Theatre.

Michael has also written a number of books on stage and costume design and has published a book on the plays of Alan Ayckbourn.