Kitty Callister

Y Fenyw Mewn Du (The Woman in Black)

By Stephen Malatratt & Susan Hill

Translated by Gwawr Loader

Directed by Geinor Styles

Set and Costume Design - Kitty Callister

Lighting Design - Andy Pike

Sound Design - Ian Barnard

Composer Barnaby Southgate

With special Thanks to Carl Davies.

Grand Pavilion - Porthcawl / Theatr Soar - Merthyr Tydfil / Borough Theatre - Abergavenny / Welfare Hall - Ystradgynlais

Photography : Darwin Ng

Original production by the award-winning UK company Silent Opera, using creative technology and in collaboration with Hong Kong artists, singers and musicians, in the heart of Hong Kong.

Staged across three different locations in Tai Kwun, you are given a pair of headphones to experience this masterpiece intimately while moving through three unique settings, as our Hong Kong singers and players move around you in a fully immersive performance.

Director and Librettist - Daisy Evans

Music Director - Stephen Higgins

Hong Kong Revival Director - Mark Richard Burns.

Set and Costume Designer - Kitty Callister

Lighting Designer - Jake Wiltshire

Sound Designer - Max Pappenheim

Associate Music Director - Vivian Ip

Associate Director - Sam Tang

Associate Set Designer - Ryan Lo

Associate Costume Designer - Cheryl Ching

Associate Lighting Designer - Samual Chan

The Making of Vixen Video - Hong Kong Arts Festival -

https://digital.artsfestival.org/en/video/follow-girl-making-vixen

Butterfly Hunter - THEATR NA NÓG AUTUMN 2023

Dylan Thomas Theatre - Swansea / Theatr Brycheiniog - Brecon

Why are there so many different species?Alfred Russel Wallace was always asking questions.

Born in Wales, Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the theory of evolution at the same time as Charles Darwin after stumbling upon an unusual beetle in the Neath Valley. Set sail on a fantastic journey from Wales to Brazil and the Malay Archipelago, exploring jungles and remote islands as we follow in Wallace’s footsteps and see how his theory came to light.

Performed to school groups in both English and Welsh.

Writer - Geinor Styles

Director - Llinos Daniel

Set and Costume Design - Kitty Callister

Lighting Designer - Andy Pike

Composer - Peter Knight

Sound Designer - Ian Barnard

Photographs - Athena Picture Agency

Sound And Sorcery -

A Celebration of Disney’s Fantasia

The Vaults Theatre -London

Director - Daisy Evans

Musical Direction - Stephen Higgins

Set and Costume Design - Kitty Callister

Lighting Design - Jake Wiltshire

Sound Design - David Gregory

Video Design - Doug Foster

Art Director - Sean Turner

Associate Lighting Design - Robert Price

Associate Director - Mark Richard Burns

Set and Costume Design.

Director - Jon Dafydd-Kidd

Photography by Kirsten McTernan

For this years production with most Excellent help from lots of Glorious people including Valentine Gigandet and Kelly Bannister.

Odyssey is an inclusive community theatre group featuring a mixture of actors with learning disabilities and/or autism, and neurotypical actors who perform together as equal partners. Each year, the Odyssey company produces a Christmas show at Wales Millennium Centre. And for the past seven years I have been part of the creative team. With limited time for rehearsals, and a modest budget for the scale of production. Each year we aim to produce a large scale inclusive family show that has become well and truly a staple of the Christmas Calendar.

Humbug - 2023

It’s November at the humbug factory, and the employees of Scrooge & Cratchit Confectionery Co. are hard at work in the final rush to Christmas. However, the factory’s boss and owner, Tim Cratchit, has become strict and work-obsessed, having forgotten the lessons passed down to him by his friend and mentor, Ebenezer Scrooge.

One night, Tim is visited by a colourful array of ghosts on a mission to change his perspective. Will a journey through the past, present and future succeed in bringing joy back into Tim’s life?

HUMBUG! is a fun and reflective sequel to Charles Dickens’ classic tale, A Christmas Carol.

Weston Studio, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff.

Director: Geinor Styles 
Writer: Meredydd Barker
Set and Costume Designer: Kitty Callister 
Lighting Designer: Hristo Takov

Choreographer : Maggie Rawlinson

Photographs by: Simon Gough. 

First Performed 2017 - The Metropole - Abertillery, Wales.

Touring Autumn 2018 - Venues across Wales and Scotland.

Set and Costume Design - Glyndebourne Opera  

Macbeth is a new one-act chamber opera with music by Luke Styles, Glyndebourne’s recent Young Composer-in-Residence.  Directed by Ted Huffman, Macbeth featured an all-male cast with soloists from the Glyndebourne Chorus and the Jerwood Young Artists programme, as well as music from the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Jerwood Studio - Glyndebourne
Linbury Studio - Royal Opera House, London.   

Composer:  Luke Styles

Libretto: Ted Huffman adapted from William Shakespeare. 

Conductor: Jeremy Bines

Director:  Ted Huffman

Designer: Kitty Callister

Lighting Designer:  David Manion

Fight Director:  Mark Ruddick 

Featuring members of the LPO.  

Photographs by: Robert Workman.

Set and Costume Design - Glyndebourne Touring Opera  - Autumn 2012

A new opera written specially for Glyndebourne by our first Composer-in-Residence Julian Philips, with a text by Edward Kemp, it is based on a short story by Eça de Queirós. Writing about Lisbon’s bourgeois society towards the end of the 19th century, Queirós is a shrewd observer of the human condition and writes with an intriguing mix of gentle satire and wry humour. All of this is reflected in the music, which also draws on the rich tradition of Portuguese folk song.

Jerwood Studio – Glyndebourne
Norwich Playhouse – Norwich
Linbury Studio / Royal Opera House – London
The Marlow Theatre – Canterbury
The Stables – Milton Keynes

Composer: Julian Philips  &  Libretto -  Edward Kemp 
Conductor: Gareth Hancock
Director: Frederic Wake-Walker
Designer: Kitty Callister 
Lighting Design : Andy May 
The Glyndebourne Tour Orchestra

Photography by :  Robert Workman

“The cast never leave the stage, they mostly sit on the sidelines watching and sometimes interjecting as the drama unfolds in Kitty Callister’s brilliantly deconstructed town house”      ****  Richard Scott -TheArtsdesk.com

“The design and the elegant, subtle costumes are fantastic” Hannah Sander - Classical Source

“Not to be missed.” **** The Times

Video:     https://vimeo.com/49682811

Set and Costume Design – Buxton International Festival

Summer 2019

​A Semi staged production as part of the Summer 2019 Festival Program.

The Guardian **** The Observer ****

Director - Mark Burns

Music Director (Violin) - Adrian Chandler

Music Director (Harpsichord) - Giulia Nuti

Lighting Designer - Zoe Spurr

Photography - Genevieve Girling

Vixen - Silent Opera

• Hong Kong - with Hong Kong Arts Festival coming March 2023.

• London - The Vaults, Waterloo - in association with ENO

• Helsinki - In association with Ooppera Koominen

• Beijing - In association with Beijing Music Festival

• Trento -

Director and Librettist - Daisy Evans

Music Director - Stephen Higgins

Design - Kitty Callister

Lighting Design - Jake Wiltshire

Sound Design Max Pappenheim and David Gregory

THE TRIAL OF ELGAN JONES

SET AND COSTUME DESIGN - THEATR NA NÓG AUTUMN 2022

Dylan Thomas Theatre - Swansea

In the year of our Queen 1898, you are hereby called for Jury Service. A 14 year old boy has been charged with poaching, theft and murder on the Margam Estate! If found guilty he will be sentenced to ‘hang from his neck till he is dead’. It rests upon you the jury to prove this young boys guilt or his innocence. You will hear evidence, witness enactments and sit at the heart of proceedings. You will be expected to use your reasoning and decide who is lying and who, if anyone, is telling the truth.

A young boy's life lies in your hands. As the jury in this drama, will you find him guilty or not guilty?

Buzz Magazine *****

Writer and Director - Geinor Styles

Composer - Barnaby Southgate

Lighting Designer - Cara Hood

Sound Designer - Ian Barnard

Photographs - Athena Picture Agency

Odyssey Christmas Productions - Hijinx Theatre

Set and Costume Design & Make. (2016 - 2022)

Director - Jon Dafydd-Kidd

Odyssey is an inclusive community theatre group featuring a mixture of actors with learning disabilities and/or autism, and neurotypical actors who perform together as equal partners. Each December, the Odyssey company produces a Christmas show at Wales Millennium Centre. And for the past seven years I have been part of the creative team. With limited time for rehearsals, and a modest budget for the scale of production. Each year we aim to produce a large scale inclusive family show that has become well and truly a staple of the Christmas Calendar.

Previous productions have included pupils from Woodlands High School and collaborations with USW Creative & Therapeutic Arts degree students and work with Cardiff Met BA illustration Students.

Doctor Dolittle’s Wild Adventure - 2022

Photography by Kirsten McTernan

Pinocchio and The Northern Lights - 2021

Photography by Kirsten McTernan

The Curious Muchness of Stuff and Nonsense -2019

Photography by Kirsten McTernan

Hansel, Gedeon and the Grimms’ Wood - 2018

Photography by Jonathan Dunn

Second Star To The Right - 2017

Photography by Jonathan Dunn

The Snow Queen - 2016

Photography by Paul Stewart-Davies

Costume Designer on Wakening Shadows

Vladimir Jurowski conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a new production for the 2013 Glyndebourne Festival. Wakening Shadow was a new chamber opera born out of three of Britten’s Canticles (Abraham and Isaac, Journey of the Magi, The Death of Saint Narcissus).
These Britten Canticles are orchestrated for large ensemble and  contextualised with new music from Luke Styles.

Conductor: Vladimir Jurowski
Composer: Luke Styles & Benjamin Britten
Director: Daisy Evans
Set designer: Sophie Mosberger
Costume Designer: Kitty Callister
Lighting designer: Andrew May
 

Featuring members of the LPO.
 

Glyndebourne Productions Ltd
Photographer by: David Illman
 

Featuring members of the LPO.

Set and Costume Design - Mahogany Opera

Summer 2013 

Benjamin Brittens Church Parables performed in 2013 as part of the Britten 100 centenary. Three parables where performed Curlew River/ Prodigal Son and The Burning Fiery Furnace.

The Hermitage Theatre - St Petersburg
St Ekaterina’s- St Petersburg
Orford Church -  Aldeburgh Festival
Southwark Cathedral - City of London Festival
Buxton Festival - Buxton

Director: Frederic Wake-Walker
Musical Director: Roger Vignoles
with the Aurora Orchestra

Photographs by Robert Workman.

Kitty Callister’s furnace design (a layered series of stained glass shards) made a dazzling, breathtakingly apt climax.  Roderic Dunnett - Arts Desk *****   

Arresting designs by Kitty Callister which were as economical yet impressive as Britten’s own orchestration.  Claire Seymour - Opera Today

Kitty Callister, who dotted the stage with versatile monkish furniture, clad the chorus in ingeniously colour-coded, skullcap-topped outfits and dished up a miracle in Nebuchadnezzar’s effortlessly-erected furnace made of dappled glass: kaleidoscopic and brazenly garish, like coloured shards of falling tearsfrom which the alluring sound of treble Lucas Evans rose touchingly as the redemptive voice of The Angel.  Roderic Dunnett  - Seen and Heard

Designs from Kitty Callister and the subtle lighting of Ben Payne all contributed to a late evening of rare and refined delight.   Gareth Jones - East Anglian Daily Times

Mozart vs Machine 

Set and Costume Design - Mahogany Opera Group.   

Mozart vs Machine is a high-octane mash-up of Mozart opera, electronic sound and video projection, bringing some of history’s most iconic artists together in a theatrical sci-fi-gameshow encounter. 

The Quarterhouse - Folkestone
Dates TBC. -  2017.   

Composer/ Libretto:  Dominic Robertson

Director:  Frederic Wake-Walker

Musical Director: Christopher Stark

Designer: Kitty Callister

Technical Director:  Ed Borgnis

Photographs by: James Berry

Set And Costume Design/ Costume Workshop Leader - Buxton.

Buxton Opera House - Summer 2019

Holding workshops to learn the music, movement and to design their own costumes. 200 young people from various schools and theatre groups had workshops across Derbyshire and the High Peaks. Which culminated In shows at Buxton Opera House as part of the 2019 Buxton International Festival.

Oppression, uprising, euphoria and a new world order. In such uncertain times, never has it been more important to listen to the next generation and encourage them to raise their voices to be heard.

Based on The Secret Song, written by award-winning author Michael Williams, this African chamber opera features singers from the Festival Company and 200 young people from seven different secondary schools in Derbyshire and the High Peak. First performed by Cape Town Opera to communities throughout South Africa, The Orphans of Koombu combines opera, musical theatre and African harmonies in a work about oppression and freedom.

Director - Mark Burns

Tom Newall - Conductor

Lighting Designer - Ian Wilson

Book and lyrics - Michael Williams

My work was on the overall design as well as leading costume design workshops in schools running up to the final production.

Participating Groups - Anthony Gell School - Buxton Community School - Hope Valley College -Mad Hatters Choir - New Mills School - St Philip Howard School - St Thomas More School - Tinderbox Performing Arts.

A Time There Was  - Costume Designer  
Jubilee Hall - Aldeburgh
Autumn 2013

This fully staged production, seamlessly linking excerpts from Britten operas and vocal music, will take the form of a dream journey through childhood, reflected through the eyes of the Tenor. Featured works: Albert Herring, The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Gloriana, Noye’s Fludde, The Little Sweep, The Golden Vanity, Nocturne and Winter Words

Conductor: Steuart Bedford           
Director: Frederic Wake-Walker         
Set Designer: Shizuka Hariu
Costume Designer: Kitty Callister
Lighting Design: Cis O'boyle

Jubilee Opera Soloists and Chorus Jubilee Opera Orchestra
Lexi Hutton, soprano/ Alan Oke tenor/ Alex Ashworth bass-baritone

Photographs care of Jubilee Opera.  

"Jubilee’s costumes are always fabulous, and apt. We owed that here to Kitty Callister. If you’re seven or nine, it must feel terrific to be part of such a well-kitted, beautifully-marshalled outfit."  Roderic Dunnett - SEEN AND HEARD. 

THE DAY DAWNS

ROH Youth Opera Company - Summer 2018)

The Royal Opera House Youth Opera Company spent 6 days working alongside a creative team devising a 30 minute fully staged opera piece that was performed at the Bridewell Theatre - London.

Freya Wynn-Jones devised and directed A Day Dawns with members of the youth company, working alongside composer Tom Floyd and chorus conductor Ashley Beauchamp. With set and costume devised by Kitty Callister.

Director - Freya Wynn -Jones

Conductor - Tom Floyd

Piano - Ashley Beauchamp

ROH YOC 'Brian Slater Photography, featuring The Royal Opera House

Set and Costume Design - Theatr na nÓg  
Autumn 2014

Dylan Thomas Theatre - Swansea

A young boy dream of escaping the humdrum reality of life in Swansea as WWI rages. He signs up for excitement he believes the war will bring, leaving behind his family, friends and shellshocked elder brother.

War is far from the boys own adventure he thought it would be and on a fateful night during the dreadful battle for Mametz Wood in July 1916, his life passes before his eyes as he is stranded in a muddy bomb crater.

Told in their own inimitable style, Theatr na nÓg mixes the harsh realities of warfare with moments of magic, incorporating the words of the First World War poets amongst others with beguiling Welsh folk music to tell a devastating tale of family, love and loss.

Director: Geinor Styles
Writer: Keiron Self
Designer: Kitty Callister
Lighting Designer: Ceri James
Composer: Jak Poore 

Photographs by: Simon Gough. 

Set and Costume Design - Mahogany Opera

Summer 2013

Benjamin Brittens Church Parables performed in 2013 as part of the Britten 100 centenary. Three parables where performed Curlew River/ Prodigal Son and The Burning Fiery Furnace.

The Hermitage Theatre - St Petersburg
St Ekaterina’s  - St Petersburg
Orford Church -  Aldeburgh Festival
Southwark Cathedral - City of London Festival
Buxton Festival - Buxton

Musical Director: Roger Vignoles
Director: Frederic Wake-Walker
Designer: Kitty Callister
Lighting designer: Ben Payne

with the Aurora Orchestra
Photographs by: Robert Workman.

Russian Media : 

http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2205967

НТВ    - http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/616137/ 
ТВ СТО  - http://www.tv100.ru/news/ermitaj-segodnya-otkryvaet-festival-sezony-bendjamina-brittena-v-rossii-74077/

Set and Costume Design - Theatr na nÓg  
Autumn 2016

Dylan Thomas Theatre - Swansea

On Monday March 10th 1890, an explosion at the Morfa Colliery in Taibach, Port Talbot killed

miners.

That day, 450 men should have been at work but something kept 200 of them at home, and their lives were saved while others perished. In the inquest, there were accounts of ghostly apparitions and unearthly voices heard weeks before the explosion. Will the true cause of the disaster ever be known?

This Gothic story tells the tale of the young children who worked underground during the Victorian era. Once again Theatr na nÓg will introduce your students to the lives of ordinary people living through extraordinary times, through the struggle, sacrifice and the hardship of the Victorian era. This experience of live theatre will enthral and enthuse a young audience.

Director: Geinor Styles
Writer: Geinor Styles & Mali Tudno Jones
Designer: Kitty Callister
Lighting Designer: Elanor Higgins

Photographs by: Simon Gough. 

Design - English Touring Opera (Education)  

Autumn 2012

A song cycle for children. It was performed on stage before The Emperor of Atlantis in locations on the ETO’s Autumn 2012 tour.
The songs feature lyrics adapted from poems written by children in the Terezin concentration camp, alongside children’s accounts of the recent Balkans conflicts from the powerful book I Dream of Peace.
Performed by schoolchildren and choirs local to each venue, these melodic and accessible songs give further background and context to the issues raised in the opera.

Composer:  Helen Chadwick
Conductor: Christopher Stark
Director:  Tim Yealland
Designer: Kitty Callister

Set and Costume Design -  Royal Academy of Music. 
Spring 2015
Sir Jack Lyons Theatre - London.   

Royal Academy Opera present Lennox Berkley's 1954 A Dinner Engagement and Walton's The Bear.

Conductor:  Gareth Hancock 
Director:  Daisy Evans
Designer: Kitty Callister
Lighting designer: Jake Wiltshire
Photographs by Hana Zushi-Rhodes and Jake Wiltshire     
 

Photos 1-7  A Dinner Engagement  

Photos 8-13 The Bear

"Both have a libretto by Paul Dehn, and both were enlivened by the approach taken by the director Daisy Evans, the designer Kitty Callister and the lighting designer Jake Wiltshire. Inspired by Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes, they set the action against a bright diorama, with architectural features at wacky angles, crates of Acme champagne and an omnipresent cat."      Yehuda Shapiro - Opera Magazine

Season launch and preview of Silent Opera's forthcoming production of Bluebeard's Castle in association with English National Opera.

Directed by Daisy Bell Evans
Designed by Kitty Callister
Sound Design by Max Pappenheim  
Lighting Design by Jake Wiltshire

Photographs by Jake Wiltshire

Designer - Glyndebourne
Summer 2012    

Followers a three-part promenade opera based on the Orpheus myth. Directed by Frederic Wake-Walker the opera followed three characters through three musical periods and spaces at Glyndebourne. The opera took place in the Organ Room, the Old Green Room and the Ebert Room, with the audience following the singers and musicians to each venue. With players from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Composer:  Julian Philips

Libretto: Simon Christmas

Director: Frederic Wake-Walker   

Designer: Kitty Callister

Featuring members of the LPO. 
 

Glyndebourne Productions Ltd

Set and Costume Design - Shadwell Opera
Summer 2013 

Art Theatre - London.  
  
Shadwell Opera took over the Arts Theatre in the West End for two nights only. With an installation-style operatic retelling of Franz Kafka’s famously visceral short story. In the Penal Colony harnesses the mounting tension of Phillip Glass’ music, and draws on Kafka’s influences, to mount a multi-media exploration of literary and colonial attitudes towards the ethics and aesthetics of violence.  

Musical Director: Matthew Fletcher
Director:  Jack Furness
Designer : Kitty Callister
Lighting Designer : Christopher Nairne
Projections :  Tom Harding – AV3

Photographs By:  Nick Rutter

Set and Costume Design - Temple Music Foundation  

Temple Church  - London
Autumn 2016  

Composer: Matt Rogers   

Libretto: Sally O'Reilley

Director: Sinead O’Neill

Musical Director: Christopher Stark

Designer: Kitty Callister

Lighting Designer:  Jelmer Tuinstra

Photographs by: Chris Christodoulou

Costume Design - Glyndebourne Opera
Autumn 2010

In August 2010 Glyndebourne presented Stravinsky’s short operas Renard and Mavra as part of the annual Jerwood Chorus Development Scheme performances.

Conductor: Leo McFall
Director: Frederic Wake-Walker
Costume Design: Kitty Callister
Costume supervisor: Sukie Kirk

With The Britten Sinfonia
Photographs by David Illman

February 2016 Southbank Centre, London & Touring.  

Set and Costume Design - Mahogany Opera Group.   

‘What the Rattler has wind of
will always blow ill,
For the Rattler will take
what the Rattler will.'

The Rattler is a new interactive retelling of Rumpelstiltskin . Each performance begins with a series of music and craft activities and a colourful pageant. As the festivities unfold with lively, folk-infused music, puppetry and inventive storytelling, you are invited to help bring this age-old tale to life.

Composer:  Stephen Deazley

Libretto:  Martin Riley

Director:  Frederic Wake-Walker

Musical Director: Christopher Stark

Designer: Kitty Callister

Puppet Designer :  Nick Ash

Lighting Design :  Daniel Large

Photographs by: James Berry