Biography

Katy Hoste is a freelance theatre designer and maker, originally from North Yorkshire; she is now based in London and has close ties to Bristol and the Southwest. Since training in Stage Design at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, she can be found designing shows for theatres and odd locations as well as working as a scenic painter and props maker when needed. She works in theatre, circus, and events across the country.

Some of her most recent design credits are Set & Costume designer for DIRT! a Circus Adventure underground with She Said Jump, Set & Costume Design for Bristol School of Acting, and Associate Designer for Dear Young Monster at Bristol Old Vic. Some of her recent fabrication credits are Puppet Maker for A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, Art Department for Secret Cinema, and Scenic Painting at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre.

Katy also has a longstanding relationships with Italia Conti (design), Bath Carnival (core artist), Pegasus Theatre (Design)

These four one-act plays were written and devised by the Acting students in the Italia Conti graduate class of ’25. We had four distinct stories to tell, two per show, one per act.

Developing a set that could adapt and change during the interval for four vastly different plays was the real challenge for this project. I took inspiration from Cornelia Parker’s Exploding Shed, creating hanging flats that looked like broken apart sections of a room. They were rigged in a way that they could be flipped between each show, revealing a totally different environment depending on whether we were in the 1980s in Manchester, a Chelsea flat during the poll Tax riots, a luxury resort or a pub. The floor was similar, playing Tetris with charity shop rugs meant the floor could totally transform as the different plays required.

The Watsons, a Laura Wade re-imagining of Jane Austen’s unfinished work. It’s funny, surreal and was a joy to design.