
Es Devlin
Art
Biography
Esmeralda Devlin CBE RDI (/ɛz/; born 24 September 1971) is an English artist and stage designer who works in a range of media, often mapping light and projecting film onto kinetic sculptural forms. She has received several accolades, including a Tony Award and two Olivier Awards. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours by Queen Elizabeth II for services to design. She was recognised as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2013. Devlin is known for her extensive work in the theatre. For her work in the West End, she won two Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Set Design for Chimerica (2014) and The Nether (2015). She was Olivier-nominated for Hamlet (2016), The Lehman Trilogy (2019), and Dear England (2024). For her work on Broadway, she won the Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Play for The Lehman Trilogy (2022). She was Tony-nominated for Machinal (2014) and American Psycho (2016). She is also known for her roles in The Hunt (2019) and The Motive and the Cue (2023). Description above from the Wikipedia article Es Devlin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For

Step inside the minds of the most innovative designers in a variety of disciplines and learn how design impacts every aspect of life.
Abstract: The Art of Design

As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father's death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.
National Theatre Live: Hamlet

From a teenager's suburban bedroom to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, this is a story of a heartbroken father's quest to uncover the truth behind his daughter's death and his fightback against how the most powerful corporations of the modern age operate.
Molly vs. THE MACHINES

A recording of Julie Taymor's New York stage production of William Shakespeare's comedy.
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Once upon a time, in the future, Grimm’s heroines and heroes join forces in an epic sci-fi fairy tale that challenges everything we think we know about their stories to reframe how we face an uncertain future with hope.
The Lunar Chronicles

A witch hunt is beginning in Arthur Miller's captivating parable of power with Erin Doherty (The Crown) and Brendan Cowell (Yerma). Raised to be seen but not heard, a group of young women in Salem suddenly find their words have an almighty power. As a climate of fear, vendetta and accusation spreads through the community, no one is safe from trial. Lindsey Turner (Hamlet) directs this contemporary new staging, design by Tony award winner Es Devlin. Captured live from the Olivier stage of the national theater.
National Theatre Live: The Crucible

Unrivalled in the art of war, undefeated on the field of battle, Coriolanus is Rome's greatest soldier. When a legendary victory brings the opportunity of high office, he is persuaded to stand for election. But while populist politicians tell the people what they want to hear, Coriolanus refuses to play the game. As Rome's most celebrated warrior becomes its most dangerous enemy, the future of the city and its hero hang in the balance.
National Theatre Live: Coriolanus

In 1964, Richard Burton, newly married to Elizabeth Taylor, is to play the title role in an experimental new Broadway production of Hamlet under Sir John Gielgud’s exacting direction. But as rehearsals progress, two ages of theatre collide and the collaboration between actor and director soon threatens to unravel.
National Theatre Live: The Motive and the Cue

On a cold September morning in 1844 a young man from Bavaria stands on a New York dockside. Dreaming of a new life in the new world. He is joined by his two brothers and an American epic begins. 163 years later, the firm they establish – Lehman Brothers – spectacularly collapses into bankruptcy, and triggers the largest financial crisis in history.
National Theatre Live: The Lehman Trilogy

David McVicar’s powerful Royal Opera House 2008 production of Strauss's opera – based on a play by Oscar Wilde – takes the controversial and disturbing film 120 Days of Sodom as its visual reference. The action is set in a debauched palace, which has suggestions of Nazi Germany. Strauss’s ravishing and voluptuous score adds to the sexual alchemy that is conjured by an international cast led by Nadja Michael in the title role.
Royal Opera House: Salomé

Fresh off the release of Kanye's fourth #1 album, 808s & Heartbreak, VH1 and Mr. West collaborated for a special concert as part of the critically acclaimed Storytellers series. A collection of live performances from Kanye's arsenal of hits including songs from his ground breaking 808s & Heartbreak album.
Kanye West: VH1 Storytellers

A live recording of an amended version of the Robin Hood story, staged at the Palaís des congrès de Paris in January 2014.
Robin Hood – The Musical Spectacle

Featuring exclusive access to their recent tour and their new album, this documentary reveals the fascinating world of Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.
Imagine… Pet Shop Boys: Then and Now

The country that gave the world football has since delivered a painful pattern of loss. Why can’t England’s men win at their own game? With the worst track record for penalties in the world, Gareth Southgate knows he needs to open his mind and face up to the years of hurt, to take team and country back to the promised land.
National Theatre Live: Dear England

The electrifying Lise Davidsen tackles one of the ultimate roles for dramatic soprano: the Irish princess Isolde in Wagner’s transcendent meditation on love and death. Heroic tenor Michael Spyres stars opposite Davidsen as the love-drunk Tristan. Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova reprises her signature portrayal of Brangäne, alongside bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny, who sings Kurwenal after celebrated Met appearances in Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer and Ring cycle. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green makes an important role debut as King Marke.
The Metropolitan Opera: Tristan und Isolde

A major work from the remarkable partnership of playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, Mahagonny was first performed in Leipzig in 1930. Its first ever Royal Opera staging, by Associate Director of Opera John Fulljames, is sung in English, and conducted by Mark Wigglesworth – recently announced as the successor to Edward Gardner as Music Director of English National Opera. Mahagonny is a satire on money, morality and pleasure-seeking among the dubious citizens of a fictional city. The richly varied, jazz-infused score, influenced by ragtime music, includes such irresistible melodies as the ‘Alabama Song’ and many dramatic ensembles. The superb cast includes Kurt Streit as the wild lumberjack Jimmy, Christine Rice as his sweetheart Jenny, Anne Sofie von Otter in a welcome return to The Royal Opera as the cunning Leokadja Begbick, and Peter Hoare and Willard W. White as her helpers and fellow-fugitives Fatty and Moses.
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

imagine... tells the story of Aviva Studios, Manchester’s colossal new cultural venue, and goes behind the scenes at the world premiere of its opening production, Free Your Mind.
imagine... The Factory: Made in Manchester

‘Beauty is but skin deep, ugly lies the bone; beauty dies and fades away, but ugly holds its own.’ After three tours in Afghanistan, Jess finally returns to Florida. In a small town on the Space Coast, as the final shuttle is about to launch, Jess must confront her scars – and a home that may have changed even more than her. Experimenting with a pioneering virtual reality therapy, she builds a breath-taking new world where she can escape her pain. There, she begins to restore her relationships, her life and, slowly, herself.
National Theatre Live: Ugly Lies the Bone

New 2019 version of the Kasper Holten’s 2014 production of Don Giovanni for the Royal Opera offers a glimpse inside the mind of one of opera’s most notorious seducers. With a spectacular revolving set by award winning designer Es Devlin, ingenious video projections by Luke Halls, and an ‘ideal cast on world beating form’ (The Independent), this staging brings Mozart’s dazzling score to life, in all its wit, glamour, and darkness.
Royal Opera House: Don Giovanni

75 years ago two nuclear weapons were detonated over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945. I Saw the World End is a response to those precise moments of destruction from both a British and Japanese perspective.