Kate Burnett

Director

Kate Burnett MA is an  award winning theatre designer and curator of performance design. Since 1978 she has designed for UK regional, national and touring theatre companies, also schools and community performance projects for orchestras, opera companies and art galleries. She worked at Nottingham Trent University 2003 – 2018, as Reader in Theatre Design from 2007.

She joined  the SBTD in 1983, and the SBTD Committee in 1992 with a proposal for a new national exhibition in Manchester, City of Drama 1994. Co-curating with Peter Ruthven Hall, MakeSpace! won a Gold Medal at PQ 1995 before touring to 7 UK and European galleries. Her aim through curating 4 subsequent exhibitions, catalogues and related education programmes (time+space; 2D>3D; Collaborators and Make/Believe) has been to create greater visibility and acknowledgement for designers and the great range of UK design for performance, while contributing to the struggle for better pay and conditions She was Hon Sec of SBTD from 2002 – 2007.

Kate is currently Chair of the OISTAT Research Commission. She was Editor of the World Stage Design (WSD) 2013 catalogue and Jury member for the for WSD2017 exhibition in Taipei. For OISTAT@50 and PQ2019 Kate co-curated a workshop-exhibition of Paul Brown’s studio and design work with Sean Crowley and Chad Healy.