William Dudley OBE RDI (born 4 March 1947 in London, England) is a British theatre designer.
Dudley is the son of William Stuart Dudley and his wife Dorothy Irene (née Stacey). He attended Highbury Grammar School.[1]
He was educated at Saint Martin's School of Art and the Slade School of Art. He is a member of the Society of British Theatre Designers. He is married to the theatre director Lucy Bailey.[2]
National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C1173/27) with Dudley in 2007–2008 for its An Oral History of Theatre Design collection held by the British Library.[3]
He designed his first production in October 1970, Hamlet for Nottingham Playhouse. Since then, he has designed the following productions:
- The Duchess of Malfi (Royal Court) – 1971
- Man Is Man, Bertolt Brecht (Royal Court) – 1971
- Anarchist (Royal Court Upstairs) – 1971
- Tyger (co-designed for the National Theatre) – July 1971
- Cato Street (Young Vic) – 1971
- The Good Natur'd Man (National) – 1971
- Live Like Pigs (Royal Court Upstairs) – 1972
- I Claudius (Queen's Theatre) – 1972
- The Baker, the Baker's Wife and the Baker's Boy (Newcastle) – 1972
- Rooted (Hampstead Theatre) – March 1973
- Magnificence; Sweet Talk and The Merry-Go-Round (Royal Court) – 1973
- Ashes (Open Space) – January 1974
- The Corn is Green (Watford Palace) – 1974
- Twelfth Night, director Peter Gill (RSC Stratford) – August 1974
- Harding's Luck (Greenwich Theatre) – December 1974
- Fish in the Sea (Half Moon Theatre) – February 1975
- As You Like It (Nottingham Playhouse) – 1975
- The Fool (Royal Court) – 1975
- The Norman Conquests (Berlin) – 1976
- Small Change, Peter Gill (Royal Court) – July 1976
- As You Like It (opening of Riverside Studios) – May 1976
- Ivanov, director David Jones (RSC Aldwych Theatre) – September 1976
- The Cherry Orchard, director Peter Gill, (Riverside Studios) – January 1978
- That Good Between Us (RSC Donmar Warehouse) – July 1977
- Lavender Blue (National, Cottesloe) – November 1977
- Touched (Nottingham Playhouse at the Old Vic) – September 1977
- The World Turned Upside Down (National, Cottesloe) – 2 November 1978
- Has 'Washington' Legs? (National, Cottesloe) – 29 November 1978
- Billy Budd (The Metropolitan Opera House, New York) – 1978
- Dispatches (National, Cottesloe) – 6 June 1979
- Undiscovered Country (National, Olivier) – 20 June 1979
- Lark Rise and Candleford (National, Cottesloe) – 1979
- Don Quixote (National, Olivier) – 1982
- Schweyk in the Second World War, Bertolt Brecht (National, Olivier) – 1982
- Small Change (National, Cottesloe) – 1983
- Cinderella, Pantomime (National, Lyttelton) – December 1983
- The Mysteries: Doomsday/The Nativity/The Passion, designed and lit (National, Cottesloe; Lyceum Theatre) – 1985
- The Party (RSC The Pit) – 1985
- Richard III (RSC Barbican Theatre) – 1985
- Today (RSC The Pit) – 1985
- Mutiny, David Essex musical (Piccadilly Theatre) – 1985
- The Critic/The Real Inspector Hound (National, Olivier) – 1985
- Edmond, David Mamet (Royal Court) – 1985
- The Merry Wives of Windsor (RSC Barbican Theatre) – 1986 and 1987
- Futurists (National, Cottesloe) – 1986
- Prairie du Chien/The Shawl (Royal Court Upstairs) – 1986
- Kafka's Dick (Royal Court) – 1986
- Country Dancing (RSC The Pit) – 1987
- Richard II (RSC Barbican Theatre) – 1987
- Entertaining Strangers (National, Cottesloe) – 1987
- Girlfriends, Howard Goodall musical (Playhouse Theatre) – 1987
- Waiting for Godot (National, Lyttelton) – 1987
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (National, Lyttelton) – 1988
- The Shaughran (National, Olivier) – 1988 and 1989
- The Changeling (National, Lyttelton) – 1988
- The Father, August Strindberg (National, Cottesloe) – 1988
- The Voysey Inheritance (National, Cottesloe) – 1989
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (dir Howard Davies) New York – 1990
- Lenny (dir Peter Hall) Queens Theatre - July 1999 [4]
- Amadeus (dir Peter Hall) Old Vic – October 1998; New York – 1999
- Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall (dir Roger Michell), National Cottesloe – April 2000; Duchess Theatre – April 2001
- All My Sons by Arthur Miller (dir Howard Davies) National Lyttelton – July 2000; National Lyttelton – August 2001
- Entertaining Mr Sloane (dir Terry Johnson ) Arts Theatre – January 2001
- The York Realist (written and dir Peter Gill) Royal Court – January 2002; Strand Theatre – March 2002[5]
- The Coast of Utopia: Voyage/Shipwreck/Salvage, trilogy by Tom Stoppard (dir Trevor Nunn) National – August 2002[6]
- The Breath of Life by David Hare (dir Howard Davies) Theatre Royal Haymarket – October 2002[7]
- Honour by Joanna Murray-Smith (dir Roger Michell) National Cottesloe – 2003
- Hitchcock Blonde (written and dir Terry Johnson) Royal Court and Lyric Theatre – 2003[8]
- The Permanent Way by David Hare (dir Max Stafford Clark) National Cottesloe – January 2004
- Cyrano de Bergerac (dir Howard Davies) National Olivier – April 2004[9]
- Old Times by Harold Pinter (dir Roger Michell) Donmar Warehouse – July 2004[10]
- The Woman in White musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber (dir Trevor Nunn) Palace Theatre – September 2004;[11] New York – 2005[12]
- Titus Andronicus (dir Lucy Bailey) Shakespeare's Globe – 2006[13]
- The Beggar's Opera (dir Lucy Bailey) Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park – 2011
- Fortune's Fool (dir Lucy Bailey) The Old Vic – 2013.[14]
Awards include:
Dudley was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to stage design.[15]
The Stage Thursday 24 April 2003, page 9