Richard Southern

Who was Richard Southern?

Richard Southern was a British theatre designer and lecturer, best known for his extensive pictorial documentation of historical theatre construction, the Richard Southern Print Collection, comprising some 22,500 visual images. A prolific stage designer and theatre restorer, Southern devoted decades to researching and documenting theatre construction.

Southern was educated at St Dunstan’s College, then at Goldsmith’s Art School and the Royal Academy of Art, where he trained as a designer. Starting out in acting and stage managing, he designed sets for some fifty productions, staged at the Everyman Theatre, the Cambridge Festival Theatre, and other London venues.

In 1947, Southern was appointed Theatre Planning Adviser to the Arts Council. His investigation and reconstruction of period theatres and stages included work on Georgian theatres in Richmond, Yorkshire, and King's Lynn, Norfolk. He also took a leading role in the restoration of the first American theatre in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

Together with George Speaight and Sybil Rosenfeld, Southern was a founder of the Society for Theatre Research supported by a journal, Theatre Notebook, which he co-edited for nine years.