Artist Info
Michael Spencer
Michael Spencer has been designing in the professional theatre for over 20 years since graduating in 1983. The range of his work incorporates community theatre, commercial touring, repertory theatre and Opera.
In 1991 he became the first person in the UK to receive an MA in Theatre Design, which then became the catalyst for a teaching career alongside continuing professional practice. He has been course director of the BA Performance Design & Practice course (formally BA Theatre Design) at Central Saint Martins College 2003, during which time the course has undergone significant changes, aligned with those in an expanding field of practice.
He was a UK representative at the recent OISTAT symposium in Moscow and gave a presentation of his current practice-based research, Variation, Verification & Vindication at the PQ’11 Expanding Scenography Symposium in Riga, Latvia in Feb 2010.
His work features a long collaboration with director Andrew Manley including three British Premieres of adaptations of Chekhov plays by David Mamet, and in opera an infamous Marriage of Figaro for the Welsh National Opera. Recent professional commissions include a site specific Attempts On Her Life (Crimp) at a disused gas utilities building in Colorado Springs and the design and performance of a pure maths paper, The Anatomy of Integers & Permutations for the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton University and Berkeley University, San Fransisco.