Of Algerian‚ Polish and Scottish descent‚ British born Zahra Mansouri graduated in Theatre Design for Performance at Central Saint Martins. She has been nominated twice by the Off-West End Awards and was the associate designer at Fourth Monkey TC creating 75 shows after 10 years with the company. During her early years as a designer‚ Zahra has built up a diverse portfolio of work and thereby gained a wealth of varied experience.
Most recent and current design projects include Peter Grimes (Theater Magdeburg)‚ Whodunnit 2 (Park Theatre), Incubating Entrepreneurs (Amazon Reality Series), Immersive Cinema Experience (Backyard Cinema), Peter Grimes (Theater Basel) and Dead Man Walking (Oldenburgisches Staatstheater).
Over the lockdown period Zahra continued to keep herself busy as her transferable screen and live performance designing facilitated a number of online projects including: Gaming feature film The Night Book (Good Gate Media), Typical (Soho Theatre on Demand), Killer Party an online musical series (Aria Entertainment), P.S I’m a Terrible Person a new musical in development (Cockpit Theatre), The Fairy-tale Revolution: emergency livestream pantomime (With theatre 503), as well as developing opera design concepts in collaboration with Harry Fehr and Yannis Thavoris.
Past design work includes: Goldilocks and The Three Musketeers (Battersea Arts Centre) 3 Women (Trafalgar Studios)‚ media campaign shoots for the NHS and Refugee Action (Brickwall Productions)‚ Henry V‚ Pericles‚ The Tempest‚ Romeo and Juliet‚ Widows‚ Ghetto‚ and new writing pieces: Bombshells‚ Kidnap! and Fatty Arbuckle‚ (Fourth Monkey House)‚ Hansel and Gretel (The Rose Theatre)‚ The Trenches (Les Enfants Terrible at the Southwark Play House), Late Company (transfer‚ Trafalgar Studio 2 from Finborough Theatre)‚ Movie Trilogy Tour (The Royal Albert Hall Studio‚ Pleasance King Dome‚ BAC)‚ devised site specific project: Orlando (Knole House and Hanbury Hall in association with BFI ‘Flare)‚ The Great Gatsby (Wilton’s Music Hall)‚ This Little life of mine (Park Theatre)‚ Finding Butterfly (Limehouse Town Hall)‚ The Shallow End (Southwark Play House)‚ The Marked (Oval House)‚ Paradise Lost (Trinity Buoy Wharf)‚ Blood Wedding (Theatre Cavantes)‚ The Cause (Jermyn Street Theatre)‚ Elephant Man (Brockley Jack)‚ 4.48 Psychosis (Theatro Technis)‚ Being Tommy Cooper (The Old Red Lion) and Hamlet‚ Much Ado About Nothing and The Bells (Park Theatre 90).
Film Work includes: The Good Neighbour and Shadow Plant (Black House Pictures)‚ Brighton to Southgate (Aegis Film Productions)‚ Diversion (LA Productions)‚ and Stolen (Fahrenheit Films).
Zahra also has a background in competitive Ballroom and Latin Dancing where she refined skills in designing and making competitive dance wear for a number of private clients‚ which led her to work with leading dance couture houses‚ Chrisanne and Dance Sport International. As a result, she now prides herself on creating work that is informed by her knowledge of movement and understanding of people inhabiting space.
Nicky Shaw’s sets and Zahra Mansouri’s costumes place the piece in a workers’ canteen and in Lisa’s spare bedroom in the 1950s. Both of them look a treat.
By displacing the action onto four different floors, the piece is permeated by a sense of structural disorientation, which allows the company to play with spaces and visuals. The multiple rooms are decorated with simple materials crafted into vivid and truly impressive sets. From woodland to a cold corporate meeting room, the look of the production and the peculiar use of props are as remarkable as the configuration of the subject matter itself.
In Zahra Manouri’s simple, but versatile suspended set she created a series of almost ritualistic tableaux that included a procession around the theatre (a converted church) and surreal projections such as a moon that became a rolling eyeball.
'It comes as a shock to walk into the theatre and be confronted by a sumptuous hotel suite complete with champagne flutes and roses. This is the kind of set that once would have got a welcoming round of applause in Shaftesbury Avenue.'
'Zahra Mansouri’s set design is snazzier and more detailed. The dining room is spotless in its simple grandeur and shows off the Shaun-Hastings’ significant wealth.'
'Both the set and costumes were subtle‚ but well observed enough to communicate the different social standings of the two families as they spend an evening crossing the great divide of middle and upper middle.'
'The set‚ brilliantly detailed... The set by Zahra Mansouri makes you feel that you‚ too‚ have been invited to this sad soirée.'
'Zahra Mansouri’s design transforms Theatre503’s tiny space into a treasure chest of imagination as scenes flip between Victorian London‚ Fairytale Land and Lapland.'
It comes as a shock to walk into the theatre and be confronted by a sumptuous hotel suite complete with champagne flutes and roses. This is the kind of set that once would have got a welcoming round of applause in Shaftesbury Avenue.
The set is an inspired choice
'Limehouse Town Hall‚ a massive shell of a building steeped in history and containing that empty and slightly haunted sense of an unfrequented venue‚ provides the perfect atmosphere for this reimagined storyline. It is complemented by a minimalist set of hospital beds and wheelchairs‚ and an ensemble of patients‚ a motley crew of characters who provide just enough colour to what otherwise is a very small cast without obstructing the focus of the storyline.'
Limehouse Town Hall‚ a massive shell of a building steeped in history and containing that empty and slightly haunted sense of an unfrequented venue‚ provides the perfect atmosphere for this reimagined storyline. It is complemented by a minimalist set of hospital beds and wheelchairs‚ and an ensemble of patients‚ a motley crew of characters who provide just enough colour to what otherwise is a very small cast without obstructing the focus of the storyline.