Richard Roberts —
Richard Roberts is a freelance theatre designer based in Melbourne. His design experience has included designs for drama, dance, film, television and opera. Following graduation from the Flinders University drama course he was appointed as a resident designer with the South Australian Theatre Company in 1977. He moved to Sydney in 1981 to practise as a freelance designer and in the following five years his work included designs for Nimrod, Sydney Theatre Co., Belvoir Street Theatre, and
SBS Television. In 1986 Richard moved to Melbourne to take up a position as a resident designer with Melbourne Theatre Co. where his designs included Macbeth, Dreams in an Empty City, As You Like It, and Hedda Gabler. In this period he also worked as a freelance designer for Playbox, Sydney Theatre Co. and State Theatre Co. of South Australia. In 1992 Richard went to Perth to establish the Design stream at WAAPA. While there, he continued to freelance as a designer. Some of his design work during this time included, The Battlers for the Seven Network, The Magic Flute and Die Fledermaus for the West Australian Opera and the Australian
Opera, Lochie Leonard and Dead Funny for the Perth Theatre Company and the set for Black Swan Theatre Company’s production of Blackrock by Nick Enright.
After five years in Perth at WAAPA, in 1997 he decided to return to Melbourne and resume his freelance career. In January 2000 he was appointed Head of the School of Production at the Victorian College of the Arts. During the ten years he was at the college, he continued to practice as a designer while leading the production programme and teaching design at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. At the end of 2010, he resigned from the College, and now freelances as a designer fulltime.
Richard’s most recent designs include: Don Pasquale and La Sonnambula for Opera Australia, The Magic Flute, A Baroque Triple Bill, The Coronation of Poppea, and Don Giovanni for Victorian Opera, Next To Normal, The Gift and The Grenade for the Melbourne Theatre Company, True West and both the Sydney and London production of Riflemind for Sydney Theatre Company, The Man from Mukinupin and Sapphires for both Melbourne Theatre Company and Company B. He has won Green Room Awards for Best Design; in 1998 for Stolen at Playbox, in 2000 for Life After George at MTC, in 2001 for the set for Requiem, and in 2004 for Molto Vivace
both for The Australian Ballet.
During his career, he has been a member of a number of professional panels including; the Theatre Industry Panel for Western Australian Department for the Arts, the Theatre Studies Committee and Play Selection Committee for Victorian Board of Studies, the Artistic Advisory committee for Victorian Opera and is currently a board member of Polyglot Theatre Company. Richard holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) from Flinders University of South Australia.