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Bek Palmer
Bek Palmer Greater London
Based in: Greater London
Member Of: SBTD
Visit Website: Website

Bek trained in Performance Design at LIPA and studied Post Graduate Theatre Design at RWCMD.

Designs include; My Mother Said I Never Should, The Birthday Party, Waiting for Godot and Betrayal, London Classic Theatre; A Christmas Carol, Henry II, Matilda the Empress, Reading Between the Lines; The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, Eastern Angles; Spirits of the Sea, Bear & Butterfly, Tiny Treasures, Luna, The Elves and the Shoemakers, Angel, The Night Pirates and My Mother Told Me Not To Stare, Theatre Hullabalo;  Alfie White – Space Explorer and Lemony Snicket’s Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming, Tall Stories;  What The Ladybird Heard, Kenny Wax Ltd;  Shaun The Sheep, Dan Coleman;  Happily Ever After, Action Transport Theatre; 5 More Minutes,Travelled Companions.

Upcoming productions in 2019 include La Cenerentola for British Youth Opera, No Man’s Land for London Classic Theatre and Hansel and Gretel for Reading Between the Lines.

Bek specialises in designing/making puppets and has also worked as Installation Artist for Punchdrunk.  She regularly works as Wardrobe Mistress for Qdos Pantomimes and Grange Park Opera.

Image credit: Sheila Burnett

Featured Work

Waiting for Godot

Role/Title: Production Designer
Year of Production Opening: 2015
Venue: National Tour of both End-On and In-the-Round, mid-scale venues
Company: London Classic Theatre
Sheila Burnett
Image Credit - Sheila Burnett
The country road in the script is, to me, an allegory for a route between two stages in life that people usually pass through, but these characters have got caught in a loop of repeating actions and events.

I wanted to create a parallel universe, where alternate versions are glimpsed through portals.  Initial ideas were of a hall of mirrors, things being reflected many times, each with slight distortion. Choosing to elevate trees as if they were slowly rising through this alternate reality, I positioned one tree lower in the space giving us the tree featured in the play.

Until late in the process, I had a large oval wooden floor, but this worked against the transitionary space I was trying to create. I decided to cover the floor area with a black reflective surface on which the characters cannot step and broke the wooden floor into floating stepping stones, creating a pathway through the space.  This decision influenced the blocking of the action, resulting in a choreographed route over the stones to navigate the space.


PRODUCTION CREDITS

Director: Michael Cabot
Writer: Samuel Beckett
Lighting Designer: Andy Grange
Set Builder: Tandem Scenery
Costume Supervisor: Saeni Greene
Photographer: Sheila Burnett