Chris Shutt
Lecturer SOL07 The Music of Sound
Christopher Shutt was born in Canada, the Belgium of North America, the son of an Olympic skier and an English farm-girl. He dropped out of his British education to become a drummer, forming various punk, New Wave and New Romantic bands that caused minor ripples all over Hereford and the surrounding area. Having then trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, he became Head of Sound at the Bristol Old Vic and Royal Court theatres, and then the National Theatre in London. His sound designs for the National Theatre over the past 15 years include: Happy Days (soon to tour the world), Therese Raquin, The Seagull, Coram Boy (also Broadway), A Dream Play, Mourning Becomes Electra, Play Without Words, The Powerbook, Humble Boy, Hamlet, Machinal and Not About Nightingales.  He has also designed many shows for Theatre de Complicite - from the new devised show A Disappearing Number, through Measure for Measure, A Minute Too Late (both also at the NT), The Elephant Vanishes (Tokyo, NY and Barbican), Strange Poetry (with the Los Angeles Philharmonic), The Noise of Time (with the Emerson Quartet), Mnemonic, Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, The Street of Crocodiles, The Winter’s Tale and The Visit. Other theatre includes: Simon McBurney’s production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the National Actors Theatre, New York with Al Pacino, Steve Buscemi, and members of the cast of the Sopranos; Moon for the Misbegotten (Old Vic and Broadway), Deborah Warner's Julius Caesar at the Barbican and in Paris and Much Ado About Nothing for the RSC in Stratford and the West End.  He has twice won New York Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Sound Design for Mnemonic and Not About Nightingales and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Coram Boy.