Biography

Of Algerian descent, British born designer Zahra Mansouri graduated in Theatre Design for Performance at Central Saint Martins. With work spanning genres, Zahra has built up a diverse portfolio and skill set. She creates worlds steeped in detail, remaining true to the source whilst using installations and texture as a narrative at the heart of the story. Zahra makes sure each production has its own unique presence in every space she approaches, whilst working collaboratively in her process to ensure hight quality from rendering to realisation creating worlds of high visual impact. At ease designing large and small scale projects as well as  working abroad shows includes:

La Sonnambula (Costume design only Buxton Opera Festival), Semele (Costume design only Blackheath Halls), All Roads (UK Tour) On The Ropes (The Park Thatre), The Tempest (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Courtyard Theatre), Antarctic Express(Backyard Cinema Immersive Experience), Opera Makers (Guildhall Milton Court Theatre), Peter Grimes (Theatre Magdeburg & Theatre Basel), Who Dunnit (Park Theatre), Dead Man Walking (Oldenburgisches Staatsthearter), Incubating Entrepreneurs (Amazon Reality Series), Typical (Soho Theatre/ Pleasance Underneath/ Soho On Demand), Late Company and 3 Women (Trafalgar Studio 2), The Great Gatsby (Wilton’s Music Hall).

Throughout her youth Zahra also trained as a competitive Ballroom and Latin Dancer, designing made to measure dresses for private clients whilst also working summers at Dance Sport International known for their work on Strictly Come Dancing. She would later work for leading dance couture house Chrisanne Clover leasing with clients in America, Japan and all over Europe. The experience would later shape her approach to theatre design with a deep routed knowledge of movement and how performers inhabit space.

During her early career Zahra was the Associate In-house Designer at Fourth Monkey Drama School. With over 10 years of collaborating on rep seasons with established and emerging directors she designed 75 unique productions (some of which transferred and toured). This huge undertaking of managing departments, interacting with large companies of training performers and producing multiple shows with fast turnovers at such a young age left her well equipped in creative problem solving and multitasking. This was a unique experience that she is ever grateful for which refined and expanded her process.

With a show comprised of three new mini operas and five historical scenes, the programming of Opera Makers   presented director Oliver Fuchs and I with exciting challenges to overcome, that were unique to the premise of the production. The first step in our collaboration was to underpin the visual meta language which was inspired by one of the new pieces Dreams & How To Guid Them. The intriguing world of lucid dreaming would become the central motif allowing us to move freely between these vastly different scenes whilst also grounding the storytelling of each piece.

To refine the infinite possibilities that a dreamscape could offer I first explored the psych of dreaming and their distorted realities, immersing myself in Surreal exhibitions and exploring curated spaces the design started to reveal itself. How an installation would allow all of the shows to exist in one liminal place that could be re-imagined for each opera. The defining moment of the design would be a structure with flexibility that could weave the scenes together swiftly, after an exploration period together of examining bed and dream themed materials we would arrive on the iconic image of a dream catcher. Bursting from the darkness the  performative hanging strands that permeated the space, transformative in its nature the interchanging texture would provoke the audience’s perception, becoming hair in Pelleas et Melisande, an imprisoning feel for Anna Bolena and evoke a deeply feminine symbol as umbilical cords for The Handmaids Tale.