Anna Yates is a theatre and production designer based in London. Anna designs for opera, film, theatre and dance while seeking out the intersections between these forms in devised, site-specific and immersive performances.
Anna has designed sets for operas including Le Nozze di Figaro (Luzerner Theater), Brundibar (Opera North Youth Company), Britten, Ravel and Debussy (Royal College of Music), Riders to the Sea/Cupboard Love (Byre Opera); Lucia Di Lammermoor (Fulham Opera); The Face on the Barroom Floor and Emperor Norton (Chelsea Opera); The Dwarf, (The Vertical Player Repertory); and theatre productions including Glee & Me (Royal Exchange Manchester), Berberian Sound Studio (Donmar Warehouse, co-design), The Biograph Girl and Mr. Gillie (Finborough Theatre), Tenderly (New Wimbledon Theatre Studio); Kafka’s Quest (The Theatre for the New City, NYC); The Miser (Brave New World Rep, NYC).
Anna is an associate artist of Shotput, a dance-theatre company based in Glasgow (co-artistic directors: Lucy Ireland and Jim Manganello), for whom she has designed Totentantz (LoveDanceScotland commission), Ferguson and Barton, and Discotheque.
She has production designed three feature films: The Fly Room, Directed by Alexis Gambis (Woodstock Film Festival '14), She Lights Up Well, Directed by Joyce Wu (CAAMfest 2015, SOHO International Film Festival 2015, Ithaca Pan Asian American Film Festival 2015, Directed By Women Festival 2015, United Nations. Distribution: iTunes/Seed&Spark) and But Not For Me, Directed by Ryan Carmichael (Brooklyn Film Festival 2015, NewFilmmakers New York Film Festival 2015, Virginia Film Festival 2015, Blowup Chicago International Arthouse Film Festival 2015, Capital City Black Film Festival 2015; Awards: Audience Award & Best Original Score, Brooklyn Film Festival) She has also designed a number of short films and music videos including Sina Forma (Columbia University Film Festival) and Amma's Gift (Champs Elysee Film Festival '14).
Anna has worked as associate set designer to Chloe Lamford on productions including Rusalka (Royal Opera House), La Boheme (English National Opera Drive and Live), The Antipodes (National Theatre) and Duchess of Malfi (Almeida Theatre). She has also assisted designers including Michael Levine (Billy Budd, ENO/Teatro Real, Madrid), Hildegard Bechtler (Antony and Cleopatra, National Theatre), Christine Jones (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Palace Theatre), Andrew Lieberman (The Glass Menagerie, Toneelgroep Amsterdam), Vita Tzykun (Euryanthe, Bard SummerScape), Renee Mulder (Orlando, Sydney Theatre Co.), Andrew Holland Salome (Opera San Antonio), and Paul Steinberg (Der Rosencavalier, Glyndebourne).
In 2016-17, Anna worked as a maquette modeller on the stop motion animated feature, Isle of Dogs, directed by Wes Anderson.
Anna completed an MFA, majoring in Design for Stage and Film, at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, where she was awarded the J.S. Seidman award for Excellence in Design (2013), the Lew and Edie Wasserman Scholarship 2011-13, and the Oliver Smith scholarship (2012-13). Anna graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Liberal Studies (Advanced) in 2009.