Nick Schlieper designs for all of the major Australian theatre and opera companies, and works regularly in Europe and the USA. One of Australia’s most highly awarded designers, he has received six Melbourne Green Room Awards, seven Sydney Critics Awards (including two for best Set Design), as well as five national Helpmann Awards.
His international work includes The Greek Passion, Lear, and Médée at Salzburg Festival, The Devils of Loudun at Bavarian State Opera; Billy Budd and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Hamburg State Opera; Big and Little in London, Paris and Vienna; The Hostage for the Royal Shakespeare Company; Waiting for Godot at The Barbican, London; The Government Inspector for Theatr Clwyd in Wales; Blackbird at the RuhrFestspiele, Germany; U.F.A. Revue in Berlin and at the Kennedy Centre Washington; Michael Kramer and Ein Florentinerhut for Schillertheater in Berlin; The Ginger Man and Armut, Reichtum for the Schauspielhaus in Hamburg; Michael Bogdanov’s productions of Macbeth and Peer Gynt for the State Theatre of Bavaria; Aristokraten in Stuttgart and Lea’s Hochzeit and Kasimir und Karoline in Vienna; Uncle Vanya and Private Confessions for The National Theatre of Norway; Tales of Hoffman in Wiesbaden; Ottello for Capetown Opera; Away and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll at the Summerfare Festival, New York; North by Northwest (lighting and co-set design) at the Bath Festival and Toronto; and for Sydney Theatre Company, Hedda Gabler, A Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya, The Maids, and The Present, all with Cate Blanchett in New York.
Nick’s work in music theatre includes Priscilla Queen of the Desert in Australia, on Broadway, London’s West End, Toronto, Sao Paolo, and Milan; and Love Never Dies in Hamburg, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, and a U.S tour.
Nick is a regular guest with Opera Australia, Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company and his work for Bangarra Dance Company includes Bennelong and Bush (which toured extensively in the USA and to London). He was lighting and associate set designer of the first Australian production of Wagner’s Ring cycle in Adelaide in 2004.
(photo: Lisa Tomasetti)