REBECCA ELIZABETH CARTWRIGHT
Rebecca’s background is in historical construction, though she chose to specialise in design, incorporating collaborative live puppetry & experimental physical theatre work into her graduate showcase.
On graduating Rebecca spent two and a half years in house at the Stephen Joseph Theatre (Scarborough) wardrobe assisting on over 25 productions under Sir Alan Ayckbourn & other directors, producing public workshops, designing for youth outreach both in house and with the YMCA Theatre Scarborough as well as taking freelance commission work for replica costumes, wedding dresses (cover image Yorkshire Wedding’s Magazine) & various private commissions. On leaving to start freelancing across regional theatre and parade circuits, Rebecca was asked to design costumes for the World Premiere of Ayckbourn’s 8 hour epic The Divide (a staged reading), and has since designed on 4 more plays for Alan whilst continuing to grow her varied portfolio & experience in costume design, construction, workshopping, outreach & puppetry across the UK.
In 2017-2019 Rebecca transitioned more into TV work & studied on the Performance Design & Practice MA at Central Saint Martins (with residency time in Europe) to challenge & expand her working approach to costume in a broader and more flexible definition of performance & performative practice applications. She deviated from traditional structures of theatre making and began developing a method of scripting through costume, taking inspiration from public sites or subjects of social science publications and combining her skills cultivated in industry with emerging concepts of scenographic materialities to create costuming as a vehicle for a kind of performance scripting. She worked collaboratively with mixed practitioners to create socially & politically engaged installations, dance pieces, short films, performance sketches and immersive productions in London, Italy & Athens, even being credited as a highlight performance for 2018’s International Critical Costume Symposium with Smells Like Butter.
Since coming out of the pandemic Rebecca has been able to begin combining her freelancing theatre career with her specialist costume practice, which is primarily concerned with queer and feminist histories & approaches by supervising Stoke New Vic Theatre’s / Northern Broadside queer co-production of As You Like It. She has also designed the costumes for trans philosophy icon Abigail Thorne’s (Philosophy Tube) premier play The Prince, bringing together her passion & training in period costuming with her current practice embedded in queer theory & performative cultures.
Currently Rebecca is designing & supervising on several theatre productions whilst also working on multiple pieces of new writing under her new production company The Saw Factor and supporting the growth of a new children’s story telling festival based in the Lake District . . .
Rebecca primarily works in a designer / supervisor capacity with extensive experience working closely with other designers in an associate designer/ supervisor dual role.
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