Katie Davenport
Selected credits
- Safe HouseAbbey Theatre/ St Anne's Warehouse NYC/ Schaubühne, Berlin
- Roberto DevereuxDonizetti Opera Festival, Bergamo
- Audrey or Sorrow/ TartuffeAbbey Theatre, Dublin
- La Traviata/ Maria Stuarda / Griselda / Tales of HoffmannIrish National Opera
- Sentient/ Yes and Yes/ DēmosLiz Roche Company
- DOLOROSA/ King Shrine/ Night DancesUnited Fall
- Peter Pan/ Endgame / The Visiting HourThe Gate Theatre, Dublin
- Elsewhere / Opera by Michael GallenAbbey Theatre
- I Am Ireland United Fall / RTÉ Film Feature for Culture Night 2020
About
Katie is an award-winning set and costume designer based in Dublin. She has 2 Irish Times Theatre Awards for costume design (2021 & 2022) and was nominated in 2019. She is currently artist in residence with Ireland’s National Dance company Luail.
Katie has created scenography for many major theatre, opera and dance companies in Ireland. Notable designs include Safe House, Audrey or Sorrow, Tartuffe, Elsewhere, The Fall of the Second Republic, This Beautiful Village, What Put the Blood (Abbey Theatre), Peter Pan, Endgame, Once Before I go, The Visiting Hour, A Christmas Carol (The Gate), La Traviata, Maria Stuarda, Griselda, The Magic Flute, The Tales of Hoffman (Irish National Opera); Audrey or Sorrow (Landmark Productions and the Abbey Theatre); King | Shrine, Night Dances, Dolorosa; I am Ireland (United Fall); and Sentient, Demos, Yes and
Yes (Liz Roche Dance Company). Katie also designs for Coiscéim, Junk Ensemble Northern Ireland Opera, Theatre Lovett, thisispopbaby and Rough Magic.
Recent International work includes Roberto Devereux for Donizetti Opera Festival in Bergamo Italy (2024), What We Hold in collaboration with Jean Butler, New York (2024) and SAFE HOUSE by Enda Walsh at St Ann’s Warehouse New York and Schaubühne, Berlin (2025).
Katie was vice chair of the Irish Society of Performance Designers 2020-2024, Designer in Residence at The Gate Theatre Dublin in 2017 and a resident of The Dean Art Studio 2022-23. She represented Ireland in Beijing NCPA at Evolving Design for Performance in 2016 and again at The Prague Quadrennial 2019 & 2023, a world exhibition of theatre design. In 2020 She participated in a cross disciplinary group curated by Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and Project Arts centre, Studio Interruptions and contributed work to the publication “Lights, Music, Exit.” She contributed the cover artwork to The Stinging fly’s Winter 2023-24 issue.
Katie has archived her set and costume work in a book: Archive #1 [2016-2021].
Featured work
Safe House
Abbey Theatre/ St Anne's Warehouse NYC/ Schaubühne, Berlin
Director/Lyrics: Enda Walsh
Composer: Anna Mullarkey
Lyrics by: Enda Walsh
Set and Costume Designer: Katie Davenport
Lighting Designer: Adam Silverman
Video Designer: Jack Phelan
Sound Designer: Helen Atkinson
‘Set and costumes by Katie Davenport a masterclass in brilliance creating a rabbit hole you fall helplessly into.’
★★★★ The Arts Review
★★★★ The Guardian
Roberto Devereux
Donizetti Opera Festival, Bergamo
Conductor: Riccardo Frizza
Director: Stephen Langridge
Scenes and costumes: Katie Davenport
Light designer: Peter Mumford
Puppetry: Poppy Franziska
‘Designer Katie Davenport runs riot in the costume department, Tudorbethan dress given vibrant shots of colour, including Elisabetta’s gown which features a print of these still life objects…A performance – and production – as stylish and as enjoyable as this could be enough to convince me that Devereux is possibly’
★★★★ BachTrack
‘Katie Davenport‘s design of the set and costumes, full of beautiful symbols giving unfortunately no hope, is just another wonderful example of how the shadow may enlighten the storytelling’
OperaWire
La Traviata
Irish National Opera
Conducted by Killian Farrell/ Fergus Sheil
Directed by Olivia Fuchs
Set & Costume Design by Katie Davenport
Lighting Design by Paul Keogan
‘Richly textured by Katie Davenport’s costumes. Sumptuous, colourful, Davenport’s tailored twist on period style suggests bespoke Vivienne Westwood.’
★★★★ The Arts Review
TARTUFFE
Abbey Theatre, Dublin
Director: Caitríona McLaughlin
Set and Costume Designer: Katie Davenport
Lighting Designer: Sinéad Wallace
Composer and Sound Designer: Philip Stewart
‘Davenport’s costumes playfully combining styles, and mobile phones and laptops erratically incorporated, the period in which the drama is set is deliberately blurred, slipping between centuries.’
The Guardian
‘Versace-meets-Versailles’
★★★★ Financial Times
‘Visually it’s a full blooded spectacle with a lavish set and a smashing array of costumes (both by Katie Davenport)’
★★★★ The Irish Mail on Sunday
Audrey or Sorrow
Abbey Theatre, Dublin
Written by: Marina Carr
Directed by: Caitríona McLaughlin
Set Designer: Jamie Vartan
Costume Designer: Katie Davenport
Lighting Designer: Sinéad Wallace
Sound Designer and Composer: Sinéad Diskin
‘Katie Davenport’s divinely wild costumes and Jamie Vartan’s superb set hinting at a Mad Hatter’s tea party at times.’
★★★★ The Arts Review
DOLOROSA
UNITED FALL
Directed by Emma Martin and Hugh O'Conor
Produced by Zlata Filipovic
Production Design by Katie Davenport
DOP: Albert Hooi
Dolorosa is a short film reflecting on humanity in all its glory, innocence and desperation, power and vulnerability.
Peter Pan
Gate Theatre, Dublin
Director: Ned Bennett
Set Designer: Niall McKeever
Costume Designer: Katie Davenport
Lighting Designer: Sarah Jane Shiels
Composer: Stefan French
‘Katie Davenport’s costumes and Niall McKeever’s set chime nicely in their evocation of Neverland’s childish anarchy’
The Irish Examiner
★★★★ The Irish Times
RITUAL
Junk Ensemble/ Cork Midsummer Festival
Creation and Direction: Jessica Kennedy, Megan Kennedy
Choreography created in collaboration with dancers
Lighting Design & Scenography: Sarah Jane Shiels
Costume Design: Katie Davenport
Merging visceral movement, striking visuals and live sound, RITUAL is a disturbance, a happening, an unveiling of an experiment unique to Cork Midsummer Festival.
★★★★ The Irish Examiner
Yes and Yes
Liz Roche Dance Company
Project Arts Centre, Dublin/ Washington/ Philadelphia/ Irish Arts Center, NYC
Choreography: Liz Roche
Music: Ray Harman
Stage and Costume Design: Katie Davenport
Lighting Design: Davison Scandrett
Film/Videography: José Miguel Jiménez
‘[Liz Roche] and her team, including the cast of four excellent dancers, have distilled the famously convoluted text into a poetic, beautifully wrought 70 minutes.” [Yes and Yes is] a fluent expression of Roche’s lush and lyrical sensibility’.
New York Times 2023 Critic’s Pick
★★★★ The Arts Review
Night Dances
United Fall/ Dublin Theatre Festival 2021/ Edinburgh Festival 2022
Created & Choreographed by Emma Martin
Music by Daniel Fox
Design: Katie Davenport
Lighting Design: Stephen Dodd
Night Dances is not about something, it’s for something, and this intention is where hopefully some kind of feeling of ceremony can be felt. What we want to leave behind and what we want to carry towards the future. There’s no need to understand. The making of this work was driven purely by instinct rather than intellect. Because dance is enough and it belongs to us all
★★★★ The Irish Times
Endgame
The Gate Theatre, Dublin
Director: Danya Taymor
Set Designer: Sabine Dargent
Costume Designer: Katie Davenport
Lighting Designer: Isabella Byrd
Composer and Sound Designer: Denis Clohessy
“Katie Davenport’s utilitarian, mud-coloured costumes… complete the stark surrealism that fuels Beckett’s austere dramatic vision”
★★★★ The Stage
★★★★ The Guardian
Elsewhere
Composer: Michael Gallen
Libretto: Michael Gallen, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Dylan Coburn Gray
Director: Tom Creed
Set and Costume Design: Katie Davenport
Lighting Design: Sinéad McKenna
Video Design: Luca Truffarelli
Photo: Ros Kavanagh
Dēmos
Liz Roche Dance Company, Abbey Theatre
Choreographer: Liz Roche
Composer: David Coonan
Set & Costume Designer: Katie Davenport
Lighting Designer: Sinéad McKenna
Films by José Miguel Jiménez, Steve O'Connor and Peter Martin
Projection: José Miguel Jim´nez
Photo: Steve O'Connor
The Visiting Hour
Written by Frank McGuinness
Director: Caitriona McLaughlin
Set and Costume Design: Katie Davenport
Lighting Design: Paul Keogan
Sound Design: Tom Lane
Photo: Rich Gilligan
I Am Ireland
RTÉ Film feature for Culture Night 2020
Chorographer: Emma Martin
Set and Costume Design: Katie Davenport
Photo: Sean Breithaupt
A Christmas Carol
The Gate Theatre, Dublin
Director: Selina Cartmell
Set & Lighting Design: Ciaran Bagnall
Sound Design: Denis Clohessy
Choreography: David Bolger
Photo: Ros Kavanagh
“Costume designer Katie Davenport will surely win awards for her creations”
TN2 Magazine
★★★★★ Irish Mail on Sunday
★★★★ Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Sunday Independent, Sunday Times, TheArtsReview
Griselda
Irish National Opera
Director: Tom Creed
Conductor: Peter Whelan
Lighting: Sinéad McKenna
Photo: Pat Redmond
‘The first piece of set design you notice… are the eight screens stacked on top of a guard booth to the right of the stage…. Centre stage is a two-floor setting; above is smart, even salubrious…. It’s a tale of two worlds: privilege and power’ journalofmusic.com
The Tales of Hoffmann
Irish National Opera
Conductor: Andrew Synott
Director: Tom Creed
Lighting Design: Sinéad Mckenna
Movement Director: Paula O'Reilly
Photo: Pat Redmond
Irish National Opera Chorus & Ensemble
Nominee Best Costume Design
Irish Times Theatre Award 2019
The Magic Flute
Irish National Opera
Director: Caroline Staunton
Set & Lighting Design: Ciaran Bagnall
Photo by Pat Redmond
‘As director, Caroline Staunton – with the abstracted Victorian designs of Ciaran Bagnall and costumes of Katie Davenport – firmly though subtly asks us to question what audiences often traditionally accept’
The Irish Times
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Rough Magic, Kilkenny Arts Festival
Director: Lynn Parker
Lighting & Set Design: Sarah Jane Shiels
Photo by Ste Murray
‘In a show without a set, Katie Davenport’s wonderfully brash, colourful and strikingly memorable costumes acted as a key visual link throughout.’
Irish Times
‘Davenport’s vibrant, quirky, colourful costumes, showing just a hint of fetish, capture a punk-like, car crash, youthful energy that’s both striking and playful.’
The Arts Review
