William Dudley (designer)

William Dudley

Early life

Dudley is the son of William Stuart Dudley and his wife Dorothy Irene (née Stacey). He attended Highbury Grammar School.^[1]

He was educated at

National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C1173/27) with Dudley in 2007–2008 for its An Oral History of Theatre Design collection held by the British Library.^[3]

Career

He designed his first production in October 1970, Hamlet for Nottingham Playhouse. Since then, he has designed the following productions:

• The Duchess of Malfi (Royal Court) – 1971
• Man Is Man, Bertolt Brecht (Royal Court) – 1971
• Anarchist (Royal Court Upstairs) – 1971
• Tyger (co-designed for the National Theatre) – July 1971
• Cato Street (Young Vic) – 1971
• The Good Natur'd Man (National) – 1971
• Live Like Pigs (Royal Court Upstairs) – 1972
• I Claudius (Queen's Theatre
  ) – 1972
• The Baker, the Baker's Wife and the Baker's Boy (Newcastle) – 1972
• Rooted (Hampstead Theatre) – March 1973
• Magnificence; Sweet Talk and The Merry-Go-Round (Royal Court) – 1973
• Ashes (Open Space) – January 1974
• The Corn is Green (Watford Palace) – 1974
• Twelfth Night, director Peter Gill (RSC Stratford) – August 1974
• Harding's Luck (Greenwich Theatre) – December 1974
• Fish in the Sea (Half Moon Theatre) – February 1975
• As You Like It (Nottingham Playhouse) – 1975
• The Fool (Royal Court) – 1975
• The Norman Conquests (Berlin) – 1976
• Small Change, Peter Gill (Royal Court) – July 1976
• As You Like It (opening of Riverside Studios) – May 1976
• Ivanov, director David Jones (RSC Aldwych Theatre) – September 1976
• The Cherry Orchard, director Peter Gill, (Riverside Studios) – January 1978
• That Good Between Us (RSC Donmar Warehouse) – July 1977
• Lavender Blue (National, Cottesloe) – November 1977
• Touched (Nottingham Playhouse at the Old Vic) – September 1977
• The World Turned Upside Down (National, Cottesloe) – 2 November 1978
• Has 'Washington' Legs? (National, Cottesloe) – 29 November 1978
• Billy Budd (The Metropolitan Opera House, New York) – 1978
• Dispatches (National, Cottesloe) – 6 June 1979
• Undiscovered Country (National, Olivier) – 20 June 1979
• Lark Rise and Candleford (National, Cottesloe) – 1979
• Don Quixote (National, Olivier) – 1982
• Schweyk in the Second World War, Bertolt Brecht (National, Olivier) – 1982
• Small Change (National, Cottesloe) – 1983
• Cinderella, Pantomime (National, Lyttelton) – December 1983
• The Mysteries: Doomsday/The Nativity/The Passion, designed and lit (National, Cottesloe; Lyceum Theatre) – 1985
• The Party (RSC
  The Pit
  ) – 1985
• Barbican Theatre
  ) – 1985
• Today (RSC The Pit) – 1985
• Mutiny, David Essex musical (Piccadilly Theatre) – 1985
• The Critic/The Real Inspector Hound (National, Olivier) – 1985
• Edmond, David Mamet (Royal Court) – 1985
• The Merry Wives of Windsor (RSC Barbican Theatre) – 1986 and 1987
• Futurists (National, Cottesloe) – 1986
• Prairie du Chien/The Shawl (Royal Court Upstairs) – 1986
• Kafka's Dick (Royal Court) – 1986
• Country Dancing (RSC The Pit) – 1987
• Richard II (RSC Barbican Theatre) – 1987
• Entertaining Strangers (National, Cottesloe) – 1987
• Girlfriends, Howard Goodall musical (Playhouse Theatre) – 1987
• Waiting for Godot (National, Lyttelton) – 1987
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (National, Lyttelton) – 1988
• The Shaughran (National, Olivier) – 1988 and 1989
• The Changeling (National, Lyttelton) – 1988
• The Father, August Strindberg
  (National, Cottesloe) – 1988
• The Voysey Inheritance (National, Cottesloe) – 1989
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (dir Howard Davies) New York – 1990
• Peter Hall) Queens Theatre - July 1999 ^[4]
• Peter Hall
  ) Old Vic – October 1998; New York – 1999
• Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall (dir Roger Michell), National Cottesloe – April 2000; Duchess Theatre – April 2001
• All My Sons by Arthur Miller (dir Howard Davies) National Lyttelton – July 2000; National Lyttelton – August 2001
• Entertaining Mr Sloane (dir Terry Johnson ) Arts Theatre – January 2001
• The York Realist (written and dir Peter Gill) Royal Court – January 2002; Strand Theatre – March 2002^[5]
• The Coast of Utopia: Voyage/Shipwreck/Salvage, trilogy by Tom Stoppard (dir Trevor Nunn) National – August 2002^[6]
• The Breath of Life by
  David Hare (dir Howard Davies) Theatre Royal Haymarket – October 2002^[7]
• Honour by Joanna Murray-Smith (dir Roger Michell) National Cottesloe – 2003
• Lyric Theatre – 2003^[8]
• The Permanent Way by
  David Hare (dir Max Stafford Clark) National Cottesloe – January 2004 [1]
• Cyrano de Bergerac (dir Howard Davies) National Olivier – April 2004^[9]
• Old Times by Harold Pinter (dir Roger Michell) Donmar Warehouse – July 2004^[10]
• The Woman in White musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber (dir Trevor Nunn) Palace Theatre – September 2004;^[11] New York – 2005^[12]
• Titus Andronicus (dir Lucy Bailey) Shakespeare's Globe – 2006^[13]
• Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park
  – 2011
• Fortune's Fool (dir Lucy Bailey) The Old Vic – 2013.^[14]