Venue: Hull Truck Theatre Company, Hull
Director: Kate Bramley
Dates: August - September 2001

The Blue Room is made up of ten scenes and ten characters who meet and leave each other in quick succession through the play. I wanted the set to reflect the plays's circular, revelatory structure. The multi-faceted set literally opened from within boxes and levels. This allowed the many scenes of the play to take place on one modular set, and retained an element of surprise for the audience. From a sparse, layered landscape to the final clutter, which is made by the elements of the rooms, furniture and props, every surface transformed into something unimagined.

'For Hull Truck's attempt at David Hare's La Ronde update the set is a blue room. How original. No, really, it is. Designer Jessica Stack surprises everyone with what seems at first to be nothing more than a bunch of boxes. As we progress through the well executed two-hander, Stack's boxes unfold into everything from a fully plumbed kitchen to a piano. Every available surface, at one time or another, evolves into a bed. What began as a blank, minimalist canvas becomes a cluttered landscape - a very messy closet, if you like. As good as it is, the set is does not overshadow the fine multi-role performances of Lisa Reeves and Christopher James, playing five characters apiece.
Dave Windass, The Stage

On a set reminiscent of a Cubist painting with boxed areas that ingeniously open to reveal various props. Designer Jessica Stack's clever, angular set provides various levels for use as beds.
Lynda Murdin, Yorkshire Post

The set, designed by Jessica Stack, served more purposes than a Swiss army knife and was part of the play's charm.
Keely Lead, Hull Daily Mail

Competition: Le prix europèen de mise-en-scène - proposed design and direction (Finalist)
Company: Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg
Venue: La Filature Mulhouse, Strasbourg
Director: Julia Pevzner
Dates: January - February 2003

In Marschner's opera Hans Heiling, two worlds conflict and differences between them and their values are exposed. On the one hand are the Queen of the under-earth and her courtiers - dwarves and gnomes - and on the other, the human beings, who they despise and loath. As a result of the lack understanding between these two worlds, the protagonist, the Queen's son, Hans, is trapped and unable break free from the rules that govern his environment. Our production is set in the early Romantic period, the 1820s or 30s (about the time Marschner was composing the work). The place suggests late-Georgian England, and the two worlds are represented by two social classes.

Venue: Royal Academy of Music, London
Director: Matthew Hiscock
Dates: September - November 2000

Written in the 1950s, set during the Roman Empire, yet with a Christian framework, this opera defies specific period! I concentrated initially on the Male and Female Chorus, who comment on and, I felt, are gradually drawn into the action. I put them into a fluid environment initially influenced by Gustav Klimpt, they then were drawn into the Byzantian-influenced world of Lucrectia, before finally emerging into the contemporary world, leaving the Roman story behind them. The set was an open space which could swiftly move in time and location; the costumes reflected the pure, pale Roman world accessorised in the garish colours of the Etruscan rule; the imagery of the text reflected in the props surrounding the characters.

Jessica Stack's allusive, dove-grey classical setting with a swagged cloth canopy above a central raked platform, emotively lit by Flick Ansell, worked a treat.
David Blewitt, The Stage

World Premier
Venue: Hampstead Theatre, London
Director: Philip Ridley
Dates: December 1997 - January 1998

Performed as part of the 'Arts 4 Everyone' season, the stage area was reconfigured to a thrust stage. Fairytaleheart is set in a disused community centre in the East End of London where Gideon is building a fairytale set to transform the grotty centre into a theatre, He meets Kirsty and together they discuss their problems and growing up, within the 'safe' metaphor of a fairytale. I tried to incorporate the elements of the community centre and the East End into Gideon's installation, to echo the theme of transformation of the ordinary to the magical.

Inside a boarded-up community centre on a run-down housing estate, Gideon is building a fantastical theatre set full of towering buildings, a wizard's lair, stars and flowers ... an atmosphere setting in which the imagination runs riot.
Lyn Gardner, Guardian

[Kirsty's] glittery party clothes contrast sharply with the road-protester fashions of Gideon.
Nick Curtis, Evening Standard

Now in the gloomy setting of an abandoned community hall, [Kirsty] explores a landscape of strange and colourful creations.
The Stage

Client: ?What If!
Venue: The Brewery, London
Dates: August - November 2005

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Company: Hull Truck Youth Theatre
Venue: Hull Truck Theatre
Director: Catherine MacPherson
Costume Designer: John Boddy
Dates: January - March 2002

The Threepenny Opera is set in mock Victorian London, loosely based on John Gay's The Beggars Opera. The use of jazz-style songs, which comment on the action and themes of the play, creates a distancing effect for the audience, which I heightened by incorporating a curved raised stage complete with footlights. To accommodate the comparatively large cast (26) I extended the performing space into the vom and up through the audience, creating a cinematic feel. To change scenes quickly and to deal with the difficult references to furniture, men on horseback, etc. in the script, I used a shadow wall in which the scenic needs and sometimes the actors are silhouetted.

Venue: Hull Truck Theatre Company, Hull
Director: Alice Bartlett
Dates: September - October 2001

Confusions consists of five individual one-act plays, loosely connected by the theme of loneliness. The set needed to move swiftly between each play, accommodating the changes of mood and of style. I reduced the setting down to one space within which key pieces of furniture transformed to reflect the needs of each play, echoing the loose connection of the overall piece. I heightened the surrealist quality of the plays, until the final play is set in a Beckett-like landscape with elements of the set suspended in a black space, and the set cluttered with the broken remains of the furniture.

The sense [in the final play] of fractured lives is heightened by having props from the previous sets positioned around at crazy angles. On the whole, Jessica Stack's simple set works well'
Lynda Murdin, Yorkshire Post

Confusions calls for five entirely different sets for the five acts. Nevertheless the design is excellent. Even the visible set changes, potentially so awkward, manage to provoke a spontaneous round of applause. The physical debris of previous scenes, which remains like a snake which has shed it's skin, somehow lends the play as a whole a much needed sense of unity.
A.N. Appleyard, Hullfire

Company: Chester Gateway Theatre, Youth Theatre
Venue: Chester Gateway Theatre
Director: Russ Tunney
Dates: January - April 2000

This production had a cast of ninety-four, and a multitude of scenes. The set was on many levels, with doors which could enclose the action or open the stage right up for crowd scenes. I used the area in front of the proscenium arch as steps down into the auditorium and as further acting areas. The cast had basic costumes which ranged from poor to middle class, and to which items were added to denote specific characters.

Client: ?What If!
Venue: The Brewery, London
Dates: August - November 2004
Budget: £57,500

RAW was ?What If!’s biggest event in 2004. Teams from ?What If!'s client companies were invited to spend a day listening to and taking inspiration from a multitude of speakers. On the main stage delegates saw Tim Smit (creater of The Eden Project) and Miles Hilton-Baber (an explorer who has been solo around the world in 80 ways, despite being blind). I took my inspiration from images of raw ingredients and serving food, creating a pile of plates for a stage, complete with cutlery podium, a huge folded napkin hanging above the stage, and giant vegetables around the room.

Each of the six breakout rooms had to accommodate two speakers, speaking in rotation. I paired the list of speakers together, and came up with a common theme around which to base each room. For example, the reformer of school dinners and the founder of Coffee Republic spoke in a room themed with a fast food counter. Other rooms were themed as an English garden and shed, a room of scientific formula, a school art room, and a room of picture frames for a couple of serial entreprenuers, with single images, plasmas and text of their many companies. Finally, each speaker had individual props and / or images to change the room to tell their specific story.

On feedback forms, 87% of responders gave the design 4 or 5 out of 5.

Client: ?What If!
Venue: The Brewery, London
Dates: September - November 2003
Budget: £55,000

RAW was ?What If!’s biggest event in 2003. Teams from ?What If!'s client companies were invited to spend a day listening to and taking inspiration from a multitude of speakers. On the main stage delegates saw Jamie Oliver and Mo Mowlam; then the group split into smaller sessions to hear from ten speakers as diverse as: a rocket scientist from NASA, a headmistress, the founder of The Big Issue, a founder of the Drop the Debt campaign, the founder of Innocent drinks, and a vicar. In total there were seven rooms to design.

For the main room, I took my inspiration from “stripped bare”, with huge black and white nude images covered by white raw silk, which was ripped and slashed to reveal sections of the body. As the day progressed, I ripped these further to reveal more and more of the figures. In addition, I hung white raw silk columns around the seating area. These had coloured inner cores, and again as the day progressed I ripped the outer silk to reveal the inner colour.

Each of the five breakout rooms had to accommodate two speakers, speaking in rotation. I paired the list of speakers together, and came up with a common theme around which to base each room. For example, the rocket scientist and the founder of the MOBO awards spoke in a room boxed out in starcloth; while the headmistress and the founder of School Disco spoke in a room themed as a schoolroom ­ of course! Other rooms were themed as an English landscape (complete with cow!), a run down urban scene, and a room of paper-chain-people. Finally, each speaker had individual props and / or images to change the room to their specific story.

On feedback forms, 80% of responders gave the design 4 or 5 out of 5

Company: White Horse Theatre Company, Germany
Venue: TIE Tour
Director: Michael Dray
Dates: August 1999

This cleverly abridged Hamlet for four actors focused strongly on the storyline. Michael and I looked at the Pre-Raphaelites for inspiration, and I designed a set which was a series of pewter gauzes, echoing the themes of deception and of revelation. The backdrop and the costumes were deep reds and golds, reflecting a decadent court.

Company: Hull Truck Theatre Company
Venue: Hull Truck Theatre
Director: Simon Stallworth
Dates: March 1999

The stage had to incorporate three rooms in three different houses, whilst retaining the illusion that the exterior world of each character existed beyond their room. I was trying to link the characters through the theme of illness - they all talk about doctors and pills, and reveal psychological troubles. In the set the walls are floating and fracturing from one focus point, echoing the effect of a fever.

The acting is first rate and the atmosphere they conjure up is so natural its akin to enjoying an audience in the home of the player. Major credit for this must go to designer Jessica Stack, who created a convincing and homely three section set.
Steve Patch, Beverley Guardian

The first thing which impressed me on entering the theatre was the set which is cleverly constructed on different levels to show segments of three different rooms - bedroom, kitchen and lounge.
Tracey Fletcher, Hull Daily Mail

The stage is divided into three parts by designer Jessica Stack ... Three goes triumphantly into one.
Lynda Murdin, Yorkshire Post

Venue: Tristan Bates Theatre, London
Director: Sonia Fraser
Dates: October - November 1998

Essentially a two-hander, with Anita Dobson, this play is about a couple with a Down's syndrome daughter. The daughter is now 31, and the couple must confront the realisation that they may die before her and must decide how best to care for her. In doing so, they discover that their relationship is entirely bound up in their daughter: that without her they have no relationship. The end of the play brings no answers, and in the set I tried to reflect this untangling of their relationship, only to be left with the knot you can never untie - the image a celtic knot.

Jessica Stack provided a simple but elegant domestic setting with a white cat's-cradle backdrop to echo the emotional turmoil of a family in crisis.
The Stage

World Premier
Venue: Hampstead Theatre, London
Director: Sonia Fraser
Dates: August - September 1997

Adapted and performed by Kerry Shale, who played fourteen characters, this play crosses from hilarious comedy to darkest tragedy, and from 1970s New York to 1930s Germany. I tried to focus Hampstead Theatre's wide, shallow stage back onto the single performer, and to create a set which could change atmosphere, place and time as quickly as Kerry could!

Company: Hull Truck Theatre Company
Venue: Hull Truck Theatre and tour
Director: Simon Stallworthy
Dates: January - February 1999

This two-hander moves scenes very quickly through a number of different locations. The central two are: a seedy hotel room in a run-down British seaside resort, and the pier. Lighting changed this set through the many scenes.

Hull Truck has obviously invested more cash in making this year's Sid more slick and it shows in an impressive split stage, depicting both a grotty B&B and a pier.
Tracey Fletcher, Hull Daily Mail

Company: Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
Venue: New Vic Studio, Bristol (Set)
Director: Richard Hudson
Dates: May - July 1995

Set in France during the Medieval plague, but with many contemporary references in the script, the set had to encompass a large cast and many locations. My central idea was that during the plague the whole world is dying, not only the people, so the set was in a state of collapse on one side, with heaps of rubbish along the back wall. Out of this debris came the props for the plays which take place within the main play. The circular shape allowed the characters to 'journey' around the stage, and with lighting it was possible to focus down onto single areas.

Company: Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
Venue: Redgrave Theatre, Bristol (Costumes)
Director: Sonia Fraser
Dates: January - March 1995

Set in 1907 and in a garden, I tried to reflect the garden in the costumes. I designed fabrics which echoed each character, designed repeat patterns and silk-screen printed fabrics for the dresses and parasols. I crossed the colours into the men's costumes to clarify the characters and plotlines.

Company: Eye Theatre, Suffolk
Venue: Eye Theatre, Suffolk
Director: Tom Scott
Dates: February - March 1996

For this play, I painted the walls with two stencils in the style of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The stage's wall was divided horizontally. On the upper section the stenciling formed a hedge when the action was outside, and wallpaper when inside, whilst below the panelling itself formed brambles and a fence when outside, and decorated panelling when inside. I made covers for the garden furniture, to move from outside to inside, and choreographed the scene changes, which had to be performed in front of the audience.