Hello Everyone,
SBTD is 50! Or rather it is actually now 51 and will be 52 by the time we open design|stage in Coventry next year.
It is a busy life for working designers running the organisation and in her research for design|stage, it was Dana Pinto (Curator) who noticed that we have reached this significant milestone and proposed that this needed to be celebrated and design|stage in Coventry (February – March 2027) seems like a perfect opportunity to do that.
We have gathered together as a legacy working group online to begin to reflect on the impact and reach of the organisation, the evolution of careers in theatre design from 1975 to the present day (utilising oral histories from designers gathered by Elizabeth Wright on behalf of National Life Stories at the British Library) and to consider the breadth of scales and environments that members of SBTD design for throughout the UK and internationally.
We also want to acknowledge the vital, ongoing international relationships we maintain with the Prague Quadrennial and OISTAT (International Organisation of Scenographers. Theatre Architects and Technicians) that have shaped and influenced that work, and the rich contribution that international designers make who have chosen to make their home in the UK.
We are all very passionate about the inclusive nature of SBTD, championing work made in regional theatres, small scale touring, TIE and community work, and the eco-system of structure and support that theatre buildings provide as well as acknowledging the other ways of making work and sustaining yourselves via your own companies and related fields such as music, event and festival design, film and TV.
The Belgrade Theatre in Coventry where we will be exhibiting SBTD@50 is a prime example of a theatre sitting at the heart of civic infrastructure as a place of welcome and belonging that has been at the forefront of many important initiatives that have influenced and shaped design careers and we are keen to interweave its own and the city’s relationship with design for performance into this story.
SHARING YOUR MEMBERSHIP STORY
We are primarily a membership organisation, supporting and celebrating designers at every stage of their career and as part of the process of assembling this exhibition (which we hope to ultimately give a longer and expanded life to) we are really keen to hear from you.
- What are your standout memories of being a member of SBTD?
- How has belonging to the organisation supported or influenced your career path?
- Have you been a committee member or are a member of a working group?
- Are there particular SBTD exhibitions that you remember seeing?
- How did they impact on your understanding of design for performance and your choice of career?
- Are you directly linked to the Belgrade Theatre and/or the city of Coventry through your design work or through seeing their productions growing up?
- Do you have any 2D or 3D documentation you think could help us tell this story?
Please take a few minutes to share your story with us via this form and submit by 31st October 2026
We would love to hear from you!
Terry Brown and Fiona Watt
Co-Curators, SBTD@50: Building a community of designers
BIOGRAPHIES
TERRY BROWN
Terry has been a member of SBTD since the very beginning and served as a committee member and director for a number of years as well as being involved in the mounting of the four yearly exhibitions.
Terry’s first job was as an Arts Council Assistant Designer at the Octagon Theatre Bolton, which he describes as ‘a long gone start for designers, whereby if you got selected, you went to a regional theatre and the Arts Council paid three quarters of your salary for a year.’
This led to a career working mostly in regional/repertory theatres as a resident designer until these positions disappeared, and he became freelance, working continuously until the early 2 000s.
His theatre work was complimented by a period of working as an art director for the model animation company Cosgrove Hall in the 1980s, working on the TV feature and series of Wind in the Willows, amongst others, and by event design including product launches and parties in the latter years of his career.
Terry trained at Wimbledon School of Art.
FIONA WATT
Fiona has been a member of SBTD since the 1990s and became actively involved with the organising committee in the early 2 000s before stepping up to the role of Honorary Secretary and Chair from 2014 – 2021. During her tenure she organised a series of events and fora to engage with and build membership across the whole of the UK in response to the concerns and interests of our intergenerational membership.
This culminated in The Value of Design, a campaign in collaboration with Equity, the Association of Lighting Designers (now the ALPD) and Stage Directors UK (SDUK), launched with the first significant meeting of designers at the National Theatre in April 2017 since the founding of SBTD.
In 2019, she led the curatorial team for Staging Places: UK Design for Performance 2015 – 2019 which represented the UK at the Prague Quadrennial in June 2019 before taking up a nine-month residency at the V&A from July 2019 – March 2020 and touring briefly to the National Centre for Craft and Design before the second Covid lockdown. The exhibition was supported with an extensive Regional Hearts programme, building interconnected hubs across the country between venues, higher education institutions and freelance designers, and a website showcasing the work of all 150 designers taking part which is still openly accessible today www.stagingplaces.co.uk
Like Terry, Fiona benefitted from an Arts Council Design Bursary in the early stages of her career. She also acknowledges the immense support of the Royal Cout Young Peoples Theatre in realising her ambition to become a designer, and the Lord Sainsbury Charitable Trust whose financial support enabled her to complete her training on The Theatre Design Course (subsequently Motley).
She is UK Performance Design Commissioner for OISTAT (International Organisation of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians).
