Tim Northam, scénographe costumier

TIM NORTHAM

set | costume designer








TIM NORTHAM, set & costume designer

“I believe that the evolution of a project must allow a maximum of exchange and reflection with the director before honing in on an affirmed stage design. In order to best tell the story this pooling process must draw deeply on the piece itself as well as on it’s characters. For this purpose the scale model is a real tool of trade. From the basic 1/50 sketch model corresponding to the initial propositions, following through studies and storyboards to the eventual 1/25 finished model such work allows for the completest possible step by step integration of the various partners involved. This procedure of evolution and articulation serves to test spaces, atmospheres, lighting, movements, constructions. For costume design the process is similar and feeds directly off my scenic approach.”
  


exhibition

Écritures (extra)ordinaires

Écritures (extra)ordinaires

Maison de la Culture de Loire Atlantique







press

Faith Healer

Stripped of all artifice, the minimalist staging portrays and expresses the distress and the solitude of three characters in their headlong quest for life, for death.

Des Mots Pour Vous Dire

The Baby Dance

... a very particular flavour which conserves the joy, melancholy and sincerity of the characters, and their weaknesses.

le Figaro

The Baby Dance

When the theatre meddles with painful social problems, inviting us with sensitivity and emotion to question our own judgements.

Télérama

Don Giovanni

... Tim Northam's fascinating stage design, made up of metal rung and cage structures which gradually close in around Don Giovanni.

Resmusica

Pelléas et Mélisande

For this new Pelléas, the director rejoins her accomplice Tim Northam, who signs the costumes and the sets... neither abstract nor too symbolist / lic, Bastet’s Pelléas goes to the core of things... The new production of Pelléas et Mélisande presented by Angers Nantes Opéra permits the theatre to reinvest the stage.

Classique News

Pelléas et Mélisande

This implacable soul x-ray has as it’s surround a standing set conceived by Tim Northam... where the characters trail around their neuroses in their faultless 1950s costumes.

Diapason

Orphée et Eurydice

And with what gestural simplicity Emmanuel Bastet stirs her singers and touches us. All said and done, it is... the most beautiful Orphée yet seen. These autumnal Elysian fields where a dream of ‘les années folles’ dissolves, a time of lost illusions.

Concert Classique

Orphée et Eurydice

These images, above all not a plethora, adopt oniristic hues under the honed lighting of François Thouret and in the stage designs of Tim Northam, the latter having the gift of transporting the spectator from the darkest pits of hell to an autumn dream of Elysian fields.

Diapason

Lucio Silla

We come next to the veritable protagonist: Emmanuelle Bastet’s direction and her creative team. The intelligent and sensitive sets of the designer Tim Northam are at the same time stylized and economic. His concept… brilliantly matches François Thouret’s successful lighting. Together they establish very real and distinct atmospheres… Northam also designed the elegant costumes, evocative of a dreamed up 18th century.

Classique News

Créanciers

The space imagined by Tim Northam is stripped down and nude... 3 characters, prisoners of their costumes as they are of their lives, tear eachother apart in full view.

Télérama

Créanciers

... the aesthetic envelope is particularly nurtured and is one of the protagonists. It's porosity is that of thought itself.

Le Figaro

Œdipe

Graham Vick creates a solid show which benefits from Tim Northam’s sets and costumes. Sombre and claustrophobic spaces for the palaces of Laios and Œdipe; king and courtiers in dark evening gowns and suits; a lightless world of power. A surreal landscape for the Sphinx, a “belle dame sans merci”, decked out in sequins who seems to step out of a sinister edition of the Merry Widow. A plain of olive trees, bathed in sunlight, where Oedipus, guilty then innocent, meets his death, seen almost as a Christian resurrection in Enesco’s drama.

Opéra International

Scenes from an execution

In an impressive and simple set designed by Tim Northam Hélène Vincent favourises a succession of short scenes... the actors find within it their dose of liberty.

La Tribune

Scenes from an execution

Tim Northam’s set is magical, from one moment to the next bare and “lived in”, clamorous and cold, neutral and peopled by the colours of the canvas which we shall never see, but which we “hear”.

La Provence

Some Voices

Hélène Vincent’s stage direction relies on a transformable set, as superbly cold as anguish itself, signed by Tim Northam... the feeling of unbearable imprisonment.

Presse Océan

Fiddler on the roof (Anatevka)

The technical side of the production has been sorted out perfectly, down to the last details... Almost silently, the atmosphere changes from scene to scene. One moment we see a drab village or railroad staton, next we find ourselves on a foreboding barren plain.

De Volkskrant

Twelfth Night

The non-specific “renaissance” richness of the costumes gives only as much sense of where or when Illyria might be as we need. The interpretation is created not only by good ensemble acting, but by imaginative setting and lighting.

The Times

Twelfth Night

... and if all of that can be sensed, if all of that fizzes, it’s thanks to the director: Hélène Vincent... Tim Northam’s sets and costumes are delightful.

Le Figaro

Nothing Sacred

Marina Caderone’s production, on a thrust staging designed by Tim Northam… calls up this world with brilliantly suggestive detail... it not only feels right, but surges compellingly through the debates.

The Guardian

  


about

TIM NORTHAM studied literature at Cambridge, art in Barcelona, and stage design with Margaret (Percy) Harris at Riverside Theatre Design in London. He worked as assistant designer at the Royal Opera House in London before going on to assist several well known London designers, Examples of his own set and costume designs have been seen on a large variety of stages.

A WINTER’S TALE Shakespeare 1987 (s) Arts Theatre Cambridge dir.Tim Supple. THE FLYING DUTCHMAN Wagner 1988 (s+c), THE SICILIAN VESPERS Verdi 1989 (s+c) Bristol Opera dir.Derek Lucas. IN THE BLUE Gill 1989 (s) National Theatre Studio London, OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD Wertenbaker 1989 (s+c), RIGHT YOU ARE IF YOU THINK YOU ARE Pirandello 1990 (s+c) Drama Centre London dir.Tim Supple. LA VITA HUMANA Marazzoli 1990 (s+c) Tramway Centre Glasgow dir.Kate Brown. NOTHING SACRED Walker p.Turgenev 1991 (s+c) Theatr Clwyd Mold dir.Marina Calderone. THE LAST DAYS OF MANKIND Kraus 1991 (s) Central School of Speech and Drama London dir.Stephen Rayne. THE DRAGON Schwartz 1992 (s+c) Outreach Theatre dir.Janine Wunch. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Shakespeare 1992 (s) Schauspielhaus Zürich dir.Peter Wood. SWEENEY TODD Sondheim 1993 (s) Luxor Theater Rotterdam dir.Ken Caswell. LA BOHÈME Puccini 1994 (s+c) Opéra de Nantes dir.Philippe Godefroid. CASIMIR AND CAROLINE Horvarth 1995 (s) Théâtre Universitaire de Nantes dir.J-P Ryngaert. LE SYSTÈME RIBADIER Feydeau 1995 (s+c) CRAC Cie Nantes dir.Hélène Vincent. COMMENT DEVENIR UN HOMME p.Mirbeau, 1995 (s+c), OLGA ET MARIE Prunier Nouveau Théâtre d’Angers dir.Yves Prunier. LA CABINE Liard 1996 (s) Cie Michel Liard dir.Michel Liard. ANTIGONE Sophocle 1996 (s), THE MAYOR OF ZALAMÉA Calderon 1997 (s) Cie Faits Divers dir.Lionel Monnier. LE SAPERLEAU Bourdet 1997 (s) Au Fol Ordinaire dir.Michel Liard. A DOLL’S HOUSE Ibsen 1997 (s+c) Théâtre de Lisieux dir.Hélène Vincent. TWELFTH NIGHT Shakespeare 1998 (s+c) Théâtre National de la Criée Marseille / Théâtre de la Ville Paris dir.Hélène Vincent. FIDDLER ON THE ROOF Stein 1989 (s) Theater Carré Amsterdam dir.Ken Caswell. LA VÉRITÉ, ÇA M’ARRANGERAIT p.Depardon 1998 (s+c) CRAC Cie dir.Yves Prunier. HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS p.Hemingway 1999 (s+c) Théâtre du Reflet dir.Florence Dupeu. OLIVER ! Bart 1999 (s+c) Theater Carré Amsterdam dir.Ken Caswell. SOME VOICES Penhall 1999 (s+c) Nouveau Théâtre d’Angers / TEP Paris dir.Hélène Vincent. ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST Fo 2000 (s+c) CRAC Cie dir.Monique Hervouët. SCENES FROM AN EXECUTION Barker 2001 (s+c) Théâtre du Gymnase Marseille / Théâtre des Célestins Lyon / MCLA Nantes dir.Hélène Vincent. LA LANGUE D’ANNA Noël 2001 (s), QUI A MANGÉ MME D’AVOINE BERGOTHA ? Tanzi 2003 (s) Au Fol Ordinaire dir.Michel Liard. PARTAGE DE MIDI Claudel 2004 (s) TU Nantes dir.Christian Rist. ŒDIPE Enescu 2005 (s+c) Teatro Lirico di Cagliari dir.Graham Vick. ÉCRITURES (EXTRA)ORDINAIRES 2005 (s) Maison de la Culture de Loire Atlantique cur.Tiphaine Yvon. CREDITORS Strindberg 2005 (s+c) Théâtre de l’Atelier Paris dir.Hélène Vincent. ORFEO ED EURIDICE Glück 2007 (s+c) Teatro Alighieri di Ravenna / Teatro Verdi di Pisa dir.Graham Vick. VINCENT IN BRIXTON Wright 2007 (s+c) Théâtre de l’Atelier Paris dir.Hélène Vincent. THE TALKING CURE Hampton 2009 (c) Théâtre Montparnasse Paris dir.Didier Long. ALEXANDRA DAVID-NÉEL, MON TIBET Lengliney 2010 (s+c) Théâtre du Petit Montparnasse Paris dir.Didier Long. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Shakespeare 2010 (s+c) Théâtre de l’Ultime dir.Georges Richardeau. LUCIO SILLA Mozart 2010 (s+c) Angers Nantes Opéra / Opéra de Rennes dir.Emmanuelle Bastet. ORPHÉE ET EURYDICE Glück 2012 (s+c) Angers Nantes Opéra dir.Emmanuelle Bastet. THE ROSE TATTOO Williams 2012 (c) Théâtre de l’Atelier Paris dir.Benoît Lavigne. LUCIO SILLA Mozart 2013 (s+c) Opéra National de Bordeaux dir.Emmanuelle Bastet. ITA L.NÉE GOLDFELD Zanetacci 2013 (s+c) Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin Paris dir.Julie Lopes-Curval. TALES FROM THE VIENNA WOOD Horvarth 2014 (s) Théâtre de l’Ultime dir.Georges Richardeau. PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE Debussy 2014 (s+c) Angers Nantes Opéra dir.Emmanuelle Bastet. DON GIOVANNI Mozart 2016 (s+c) Oper der Stadt Köln dir.Emmanuelle Bastet. THE PEARL FISHERS Bizet 2016 (s+c) Opéra National de Lorraine dir.Emmanuelle Bastet. THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO Mozart 2017 (s+c) Oper der Stadt Köln dir.Emmanuelle Bastet. LA STATION CHAMPBAUDET Labiche 2017 (s) Cie La Fidèle Idée dir.Guillaume Gatteau. THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO Mozart 2017 (s+c) Staatstheater Darmstadt dir.Emmanuelle Bastet. THE BABY DANCE Anderson 2018 (s+c) Théâtre de l’Atelier Paris / Théâtre Montansier Versailles dir.Hélène Vincent. FAITH HEALER Friel 2018 (s+c) Théâtre Lucernaire Paris dir.Benoït Lavigne. In progress MADAMA BUTTERFLY Puccini opening 23.06.19 (s) Opéra National de Lorraine dir.Emmanuelle Bastet.

For several years Tim Northam intervened regularly in the stage design course at l’École Nationale Supèrieure d’Architecture de Nantes as well as the lighting and sound course at Lycée Gabriel Guist’hau.


(s) set designs (c) costume designs (s+c) set + costume designs


contact

Tel : (33) 06 84 06 50 69
tim.northam@gmail.com