Debbie Duru: ‘Trust your instincts’

My first job was a show called Josephine for Theatre Royal Bath in the spring of 2021. It looked at the life of Josephine Baker as a performer, activist, mother and more. Movement and music were a big part of it and there were lots of props. I was working with a group of wonderful designers on Living Newspaper at the Royal Court at the time, and had also worked as an associate designer at the NT just before, so I had some amazing experience, but Josephine was just me on my own.

In 2019, I was a Linbury Prize for Stage Design finalist and one of the other designers in our cohort kindly shared the job advert with me. I was keen to see if I could meet the challenge of designing solo as a professional. It was a strange time when we were all trying to get through Covid and I thought it could be good timing to work away on something of my own while the opportunity was there.

The application was brief and asked for a couple of referees. I had very few credits at the time but I did have some contacts, and I got asked to interview, which was a good confidence booster. The interview was on Zoom with the writer, director and artistic director. I tried not to think of it as an interview and approached it with curiosity about the story and the people involved in making it. It helps me not to overthink an opportunity as l think you can spin yourself out quite easily. A very experienced designer friend and colleague also followed up with a wonderful reference and it was a nice feeling to have someone like her vouch for me. I do think the stars align when something is meant to be.

My advice for others is probably the classic: try to be yourself as much as possible (quirks and all) when meeting people and looking for opportunities. I think trusting your instinct is a big one. It allows you to just do you and not get too focused on comparing yourself to others. And try to find a sense of community with like-minded people who have a shared interest in the thing you’re interested in doing. That could be through education, extra-curricular projects, group clubs, young companies, etc. It’s a good way to make friends and means you can all try to support one another along the way.

CV: Debbie Duru

Age: Undisclosed
Training: Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama
Theatre includes:
As set/costume designer: Beneatha’s Place (Young Vic); Run, Rebel (Pilot/Mercury); Ravenscourt (Hampstead Theatre); The White Card (Northern Stage); Two Billion Beats (Orange Tree); The Song Project (Royal Court); …cake (Theatre Peckham); Dagny Wants to Dance (Bureau of Silly Ideas); Josephine (Theatre Royal Bath) 
As costume designer: Twice-Born (Scottish Ballet/Theatre Royal Glasgow); Romeo and Juliet (Almeida); Alice in Wonderland (Brixton House) 
As associate set designer: Mandela (Young Vic); Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical (Lyric Theatre); Dick Whittington (National Theatre) 
Film: production designer for The Perfect Knight (2023) and Express (2022)