Rae Smith

Rae Smith is a Tony and Olivier award winning theatre designer who trained at Central School of Art and Design and has been designing theatre for 25 years. She has recently designed Tori Amos’ The Light Princess at the National Theatre, at the Colseum for Terry Gilliam’s Benvenuto Cellini, Prince of the Pagodas and The Tempest for David Bintley at the Birmingham Royal Ballet, and Caverleri Rusticana and Pagliacchi for Sir David McVicar at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York.

Rae designed the stage adaptation of War Horse in 2007 where her drawings formed a background to the settings for the story onstage. This collaboration with Michael Morpurgo led to Michael inviting her to work on the War Horse illustrated edition, which was published in 2013. Rae also performs live drawing for Michael Morpurgo’s readings of War Horse, and her drawings for the stage show and the Illustrated Edition are exhibited at The Illustration Cupboard from 6 August 2014.