Tom Schenk

Set designer

Tom Schenk, born 1951, started his theatrical career in 1970 as a ballet dancer in Wiesbaden. After four years he chose in favour of his greater talent (both parents were painters) and switched to set design. Until 1976 he was assisting great designers   Achim Freyer, John Gunter, Ezio Frigerio and many others   at the Bühnen der Stadt Köln, where he made his debut, appropriately, for a ballet production.

In 1977 he settled in his native town The Hague as a freelance set and costume designer. Nederlands Danstheater became his stepping stone to the dancing world. With choreographers like Jiri Kylian, Nils Christe, Nacho Duato and William Forsythe he designed a great many ballets all over Europe and beyond.

Parallel to that he specialized in drama productions, for practically all the Dutch companies (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht etc.) and gradually more and more for German theatres such as Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, Bonn, Darmstadt, Essen, Schaubühne and Renaissance theater Berlin, Münchner Kammerspiele, Thaliatheater Hamburg, Volkstheater Wien.

In Holland he is best known for his series of environmental theatre designs at the remarkable Appel Theater in The Hague. With director Erik Vos he works on some twenty productions and in doing so he plays a major part in creating the unique, artistic identity of this playhouse. More recently other artistic partnerships developed. With Antoine Uitdehaag he is presently working in Munich, Vienna, Berlin. With Johan Doesburg, artistic director of the Duch National theatre Nationale Toneel, a gowing number of plays is yearly added to the long list.

Opera is progressively getting priority on his agenda. Fidelio and La Périchole were early attempts. Then Dido and Aeneas in 1995, Faust in 1996, Katja Kabanova in 1997, L’Orfeo in 1999 and in the Verdi   year 2001 Falstaff; most of these directed by Erik Vos. Presently, with director Yoshi Oida several projects have been or are being developed: Le chant de la terre premiered in Rouen and toured Paris. Curlew river followed, then Alex Brücke Langer in Bolzano, La Frontière in Orléans and Paris, Nabucco in Bologna and at the Svonlinna festival, Death in Venice at the Bregenz and Aldeburgh festivals, Il mondo della Luna in several french oprahouses. Presently Schenk is working with Yoshi Oida on several projects: Don Giovanni, Lakmé, Idomeneo and, last but not least... Death in Venice in Prague.

Tom Schenks costume-designs and theatre space-impressions developed more and more to pieces of art in their own right. Exhibitions of his work connected to (or indeed disconnected from) theatre productions were held in various theatres and galleries.