Paule Constable

The lighting designer Paule Constable is an associate director at the National The-atre in London and has worked for all the major UK companies. She designed lighting for the productions War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (both National Theatre) and Les Misérables (West End), which have been seen worldwide.

Her opera credits include Death in Venice, Rusalka, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Le nozze di Figaro, Faust, Rigoletto, Die Zauberflöte and The Cunning Little Vixen at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Die Entführung aus dem Serail, The Cunning Little Vixen, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Billy Budd, Rusalka, Così fan tutte, La bohème, Giulio Cesare and Carmen at the Glyndebourne Festival; Ariodante and Tristan und Isolde at the Vienna State Opera; Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg; Médée at the Paris Opéra; Medea, Agrippina, Così fan tutte, Norma, Roberto Devereux, Le nozze di Figaro, Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci, Don Giovanni, Satyagraha and Anna Bolena at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; and The Handmaid’s Tale and Satyagraha at the English National Opera.

Recent theatre productions include Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Complicité), Cock (London’s West End), The Confessions (A Zeldin Company), The Phantom of the Opera (Raimund Theater, Vienna), LIGHT: Bach Dances (Hofesh Shechter Company) and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Follies and The Normal Heart at the National Theatre.

Paule Constable has received five Olivier Awards, two Tony Awards, the Helpmann Award, the Rayne Award and numerous Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, Drama Desk Awards and Knight of Illumination Awards. In 2013 she was the first recipient of the Opera Award for Lighting Design at the International Opera Awards. In 2019 she was awarded the London Critics’ Circle Special Award for her contribution to the British theatre industry.

She is an associate of Matthew Bourne’s dance company New Adventures, for which she has designed lighting for the productions The Midnight Bell, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, The Red Shoes, Dorian Gray and Play Without Words.

The Royal Society of Arts has awarded Paule Constable the title Royal Designer for Industry.

She is a passionate advocate for sustainable theatre practice and a co-founder of the organization Freelancers Make Theatre Work.