"I am generally more creative early morning"

Hometown
Newcastle, but now in Nottingham

What do you do?
Freelance theatre designer, director and visual art workshop leader

How long have you been at it?
Eighteen months

What was your very first role in theatre?
Professionally, set and costume design at Leicester Haymarket for a studio show called Stolen directed by Adel Al-Salloum

What else have you done in theatre?
In the last couple of years my work has included:
* Set designer/maker, It’s Not Unusual, Central Line Touring, Buxton Fringe 2007, then touring
* Designer/maker, Upstart!, co-devised by year 10 pupils, Roundabout Theatre at Nottingham Playhouse
* Set and costume designer, Stone Moon, Momentous Youth Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse
* Set and costume designer, The Three Graces, Laurie Lorry Theatre Company
* Lead visual artist/installation design, art and drama workshops, Roundabout Theatre at Nottingham Playhouse
* Artist in residence, Leicester Haymarket Theatre
* Design assistant, Estella’s Fire, Hi Jinx Theatre , Cardiff

Have you got qualifications?
A degree in theatre design and an art and design foundation

What did you want to be when you grew up?
A clown, then an artist, then a landscape architect, then a contemporary dancer, then an artist, then a theatre designer. (I like to think I combine elements from all above jobs in my current role)

What do you do all day?
Well, depending on what I’m working on, it changes a lot. For example if I’m in schools delivering a workshop I’ll be up early to get into school for 8.30am and spend the day there.

But the bulk of my freelance work is designing, so on a typical ‘design’ day I’d get up and be at my desk for 9am. I work from home in my bedroom. If I haven’t written a list of jobs the night before for that day, I’ll do that first. Depending at which stage I’m at in the design process I could be collecting images from books or the internet, scrawling down ideas or sketching. If the job requires it, I might spend a whole day model-making which is time consuming but very satisfying.

I am generally more creative early morning and late afternoon/early evening so the middle part of the day is usually taken up with checking and sending emails, making phone calls either for research or if I need to talk to the director I’m working with about some aspect of the design. If I’m lucky I’ll have a design meeting at this time of day so I can get further inspiration. I usually finish working about 6.30-7pm unless there’s a deadline coming up in which case I’ll be working well into the night.

It’s quite a lonely job, and you have to be able to work through design challenges by yourself.

What’s the best thing about your job?
Designing for the performance and working within a team to create the whole piece, knowing that it’s only by collaborating that the work will get done

And the worst?
Sometimes the lack of social contact when you are working from home is hard to deal with

What’s your dream job in theatre?
Ooooh, there’s so many! Working with Robert Lepage (famous Canadian theatre artist) would be a dream come true, or designing for large-scale physical theatre/dance piece or a big opera show. I also want to continue to make my own work and collaborate with others to achieve this.

Got any wise words for someone who wants to be where you are now?
Practise your drawing and model making–these key skills are vital. Go see as much theatre/dance/opera as you can and pinpoint the companies that inspire you and try to get work experience with them. Work very, very hard.

• Katherine Warman’s website