BOVTS’s design exhibition is showcasing students who trained in a pandemic

In one of the only exhibitions from drama schools this year, the showcase features scale models of set designs, hand-crafted period costumes, lighting designs and many other creative projects. 

Now in its 75th anniversary year, BOVTS is a training-ground for the country's performance designers, costume and prop-makers, video and lighting designers, and theatre production in its entirety.

The school's course leaders delivered sewing machines, fabrics, craft supplies, paints and laptops to students across Bristol to ensure learning could continue throughout the pandemic. 

Since autumn 2020, the school has staged two sell-out productions at The Redgrave Theatre and Motion’s Marble Factory, with the final production – a modern adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull, titled The Three Seagulls – due to open at Bristol Old Vic next week. 

Angela Davies, head of design at BOVTS, said: ‘The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on education and universities has been little out of the news in the past 15 months, but the effects on smaller vocational training programmes have been less in the spotlight. 

‘These courses centre around learning through practice – designing or painting a show to be staged at a specific venue, constructing a costume to fit specific actors, and of course extensive and sustained collaborations between students of different disciplines.

‘We are one of very few institutions able to deliver both a physical and digital exhibition this year, which was very important to achieve for our students. They have developed excellent digital skills through necessity during this period but just like theatre itself, it's the live and tactile 'real' interaction with art and design and performance that these students crave.’

Jenny Stephens, artistic director, said: ‘Out of crisis is often borne great innovation – and indeed creativity. It’s often claimed that Shakespeare wrote King Lear during an outbreak of the plague, and during the Covid-19 crisis, our students have produced some phenomenal and truly beautiful work.

‘The Generate exhibition is a testament to their tenacity and resolve and we look forward to welcoming the public to what promises to be a fitting celebration of the culmination of their training.’  

Generate is open to the public from 9 –11 July. The exhibition is free to attend, but advanced booking is required. An online version of the exhibition goes live on the BOVTS’s website on 5 July. 

For more information contact Matt.Carmichael@oldvic.ac.uk or visit the school’s website.

www.oldvic.ac.uk