Christopher Oram

Background

He trained at the West Sussex College of Art and Design (latterly Northbrook College).

Early assisting work for designers Anthony Ward and Ian MacNeil, included Assassins at the Donmar Warehouse, Oliver! at the London Palladium and An Inspector Calls and Machinal at the National Theatre.

Career

Having designed extensively on the fringe in London, he began a long term creative collaboration with the director Michael Grandage whom he met in 1995 when they first worked together on Arthur Miller's "The Last Yankee" in Colchester.

Their subsequent professional partnership at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield includes "As You Like It" with Victoria Hamilton (also Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith); "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" and "Richard III" with Kenneth Branagh; "Edward II" with Joseph Fiennes; "Suddenly Last Summer" with Victoria Hamilton and Diana Rigg (also Albery Theatre); "The Tempest" with Derek Jacobi (also Old Vic) and "Don Carlos" with Derek Jacobi (also Gielgud Theatre).

Collaborations at the Donmar Warehouse include "Good" with Charles Dance; "Passion Play", "Privates on Parade" with Roger Allam, "Caligula" with Michael Sheen; 'The Vortex"; "Merrily We Roll Along"; "Grand Hotel"; Pirandello's "Henry IV" with Ian McDiarmid, "Don Juan in Soho" with Rhys Ifans, "Frost/Nixon" with Frank Langella and Michael Sheen (also West End and Broadway), "Othello" with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan McGregor, "Red" with Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne (which subsequently transferred to the Golden Theatre, Broadway) and "King Lear" with Derek Jacobi

Both

Christopher designed the four plays of the Donmar Wyndhams season, "Ivanov' with Kenneth Branagh, "Twelfth Night" with Derek Jacobi, "Madame de Sade" with Judi Dench, and "Hamlet" with Jude Law (which subsequently transferred to Elsinore castle in Denmark, and to the Broadhurst Theatre, Broadway)

Christopher also designed the musicals "Guys and Dolls" at the Piccadilly Theatre (also Princess Theatre, Melbourne) and "Evita" at the Adelphi Theatre in London, and on Broadway, as well as the costumes for Kenneth Branagh’s film of "The Magic Flute".

Other work includes Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (dir. Rob Ashford at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, broadway) "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee'" (dir. Jamie Lloyd, Donmar Warehouse) "Passion" (Dir. Jamie Lloyd, Donmar Warehouse) "Parade" (dir. Rob Ashford); "A Streetcar Named Desire" with Rachel Weisz (dir.Rob Ashford, Donmar Warehouse), "A View from the Bridge" with Ken Stott (Dir. Lindsay Posner at the Duke of York's), "King Lear" and "The Seagull" with Ian McKellen (dir. Trevor Nunn, RSC Stratford, London and World Tour) "Wolf Hall" & "Bring up the Bodies" (dir. Jeremy Herrin); "Summerfolk", "Stuff Happens", "Power", "Danton's Death"and "Man and Superman", (National Theatre). Both Red and Parade played subsequent seasons at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

Christopher was also the season designer of the michaelgrandagecompany inaugural season at the Noel Coward theatre. "Privates on Parade", "Peter and Alice", "The Cripple of Inishmaan", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and "Henry V"

Opera Work: "Billy Budd" (Glyndebourne and BAM) and The Marriage of Figaro (Glyndebourne), Don Giovanni (MET), and "Madam Butterfly" (Houston Grand Opera)

Christopher is an Artistic Associate on 'Plays at the Garrick' the forthcoming Kenneth Branagh season in the West End.

Christopher is also a Companion of the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, and is currently on the committee of the Linbury Prize for stage design.

During year 2016 The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company will present a series of five plays. The director is Rob Ashford, the actor-director Kenneth Branagh and designer Christopher Oram.[1]

Awards