Join Designers David Franzke, Bronwyn Pringle, Meg White & Sophie Woodward to hear about their processes and passions in all things Design from sound, lighting, set & costume. What you need to know when engaging Design in your independant theatre practice.

Presenters: Meg White, Bronwyn Pringle, David Franzke, Sophie Woodward


Sessions may include Q&A from both live and livestream audiences. Livestream audiences are encouraged to submit comments and questions in the live chat. Livestream playback will be available until Sunday Jul 14.


J. David Frankze 

J.DAVID FRANZKE is a Composer, Sound Designer, Music Mixer and Producer. His primary work is composing and designing for live performance in theatre. It also includes film, visual art installations as well as the production of albums. Credits include; Happy Days, The Heartbreak Choir, The Architect, The Odd Couple, The Beast, Australia Day, The Joy of Text, The Grenade, August: Osage County, Because the Night, Cloud Street, Melancholia, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Away (Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre), Sydney Theatre Company (The Wonderful World of Dissocia and Venus and Adonis), Ranters Theatre, Come away with me to the end of the world, Song, Intimacy and Holiday. David has won the Green Room Award for sound design and composition 6 times in the theatre companies category. 


Bronwyn Pringle 

Bronwyn Pringle first stepped into La Mama as a performer in 1993. Since then she turned her attention to lighting design and has worked around Australia and the world in venues that have ranged from The Princess Theatre, a London West End Nightclub, a warehouse in Buenos Aires, the Federation Square air-conditioning ducts and a woolshed in Glencoe, but La Mama remains a special place for experimentation and development. Design highlights from over 80 productions at La Mama include Yarn, Closed for Maintenance, Aviary, Beneath and Beyond and Songbirds and Angels. Bronwyn received the 2020 Green Room award for Technical Achievement plus three Green Room Awards for Lighting design, including for alias Grace (Malthouse Theatre 2004) which began as her first design in La Mama in 1999. Bronwyn also teaches at Deakin Uni and Melbourne Uni and Collarts. 


Meg White 

Meg White has worked in theatre for over 35 years, primarily as a designer. Some of her more recent work includes Mi:Wi 3027 (Set, La Mama), Hallowed Ground (Set, & Costume, La Mama), Aphanisis (Performer, La Mama) Madness of the Day (Set & Costume, La Mama). Meg has been nominated for and been awarded several Green Room awards in the field of design. Nominations include Body of Work (1999); Krapp’s Last Tape; Paradise and Poet #7. Awards include Bauernhof and Mr Puntila and his man Matti. 

As an extension to her theatre design work Meg completed a degree in architecture at RMIT. Recently, Meg was the independent design architect for Re-build La Mama, which was shortlisted in the Victorian Architecture Awards 2022 for Public Architecture and The Melbourne Prize. Meg exhibited and presented the design process of the rebuild at Prague Quadrennial 2023 as part of the Performance Space Exhibition (National Gallery Prague).  

Prior to working on Re-build La Mama, Meg was an architect and associate at Cottee Parker Architects, where she focused on the planning and design of several large multi residential, hotel and retail precincts including Upper West Side, The Fifth, and West Side Place. 


Sophie Woodward  

Sophie is a Melbourne-based set and costume designer. Sophie graduated with a Bachelor of Production (Design) from VCA in 2010 winning the Beleura John Tallis Design Award in her final year. Sophie recently designed costumes for Death of a Salesman (GWB Entertainment and Red Line Productions) and Come Rain or Come Shine (Melbourne Theatre Company). Recent set and costume designs include Monument (Red Stitch Actors Theatre) and Unprecedented (HotHouse Theatre).  

Earlier design work from Sophie includes Hungry Ghosts (Melbourne Theatre Company); Burn This, The One and Mr Burns, A Post Electric Play (fortyfivedownstairs); All the Shining Lights, Those Who Fall in Love like Anchors Dropped Upon the Ocean Floor, Between the Clouds, Pyjama Girl and Letters from the Border (HotHouse Theatre); Selling Kabul, A Simple Act of Kindness, Fast Food, Iphigenia in Splott, Grace, Extinction, Rules for Living and You got Older (Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre).  

Sophie was Design Associate on A Christmas Carol (GWB Entertainment), and Costume Design Associate on Girls & Boys, Bernhardt/Hamlet, An Ideal Husband and Twelfth Night (Melbourne Theatre Company).