Tony trained at Middlesex University and has worked as a lighting designer and practitioner across a wide spectrum of disciplines for over twenty nine years. He has worked extensively as a theatrical lighting designer, as well as designing and running a diverse array of commercial projects and also working within the feature film industry.

West End Design includes: 
Sign of the Times (The Duchess); Bat Boy - The Musical (The Shaftesbury & West Yorkshire Playhouse); Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train (Trafalgar Studios); The Tiger that came to Tea (The Piccadilly, The Theatre Royal Haymarket, The Vaudeville, The Lyric); We’re going on a Bear Hunt (The Duchess, The Lyric); Stop Messing About (Leicester Square Theatre); Ying Tong – A Walk with the Goons (The Ambassadors); Members Only (Trafalgar Studios); Missing Persons: Four Tragedies and Roy Keane (Trafalgar Studios & Assembly); Berkoff’s Women (The Ambassadors); Cooking with Elvis (The Whitehall); Round The Horne…Revisited and Round The Horne…Revisited 2 (The Venue & UK Tours) and Under the Doctor (The Comedy).

In feature film, Tony was the concert lighting designer for the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. He was the theatrical lighting director for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Disney’s’ Beauty and the Beast. 

Commercially Tony has designed and managed numerous corporate productions including for Rolls Royce, All Saints, Cartier, De Beers, Little Mix, Gucci at Westminster Abbey and several fashion shows including for Ralph Lauren, Cottweiler and the 2015 L’Oreal Colour Trophy awards. He has also worked with 59 Productions on several projects including Array and Qaṣr Al-Waṭan - Abu Dhabi. Tony regularly lights orchestral concerts at London’s Southbank for The London Sinfonietta and was recently a consultant for English National Opera for an external Lighting Design for the London Coliseum. He has lit Christmas trails for Culture Creative Ltd at Stourhead, Bedgebury and Beaulieu, and in 2019 he also lit for Independent Opera the Coronet Cantata A Sheen of Dew on Flowers by Joby Talbot at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London to celebrate the opening Queen Victoria's celebrated coronet display.

Other Theatre Design Includes:
GH Boy (The Charring Cross Theatre); The Special Relationship, Every Coin, The Archbishop and the Anarchist, The Long Road (Soho);​ There is a Field, Bleach / Hostage (Theatre 503) Pelleas et Melisande (Glyndebourne Festival Opera); Blackout (Oval House); The Trial of Jane Fonda (Park Theatre / Gatehouse, Highgate / Assembly); La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor, Carmen (Winslow Hall Opera); Private Ear Public Eye, The Handyman (Yvonne Arnaud, Guildford and Tours;) Mr Stink (UK Tour); Sign of the Times (Windsor Theatre Royal & UK Tour); The Tiger That Came to Tea (UK & International Tours); We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (UK Tours); Girls Night (UK Tours); Stop Messing About (The Rose Theatre, Kingston); Steptoe & Son (Plymouth & UK Tour); Blue Orange (Watford Palace); The Flu Season, Habitats (The Gate); Falstaff, Hansel and Gretel (Queen Elizabeth Hall, London); Tuesday’s Child (Hampstead Theatre Studio); The Way of The World, The Weir, Waiting for Godot, Arcadia (Royal Theatre Northampton); Master Harold…and the Boys, Burn, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (Southwark Playhouse); The Man Who (Orange Tree Theatre); The Lesson, The Merchant of Venice (Arcola Theatre); Small Miracle, Death of a Salesman, She Stoops to Conquer, Miss Julie, Blue Sky State, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Betrayal, Brass Balls, Our Country’s Good, (Mercury Theatre, Colchester); The Emperor and the Nightingale (The Watermill, Newbury) and numerous other productions over a nineteen year association with Synergy Theatre Project in various London Prisons. During the early 1990's, Tony also lit several productions on London's Fringe Theatre Network as well as various dance companies at The Place Theatre, The Lillian Bayliss Theatre and Jacksons Lane.

Tony has worked extensively as an Associate Lighting Designer in London, on tour and internationally, productions include Satyagraha (Los Angeles Opera); Death in Venice (Opera North); the National Theatre’s Life x 3 and An Inspector Calls (both West End & various UK Tours); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (West End); Amadeus (West End, UK Tours, New York & Los Angeles); The Weir (Royal Court UK Tours, Sicily & Australia); The Shape of Things (West End); Les Liaison Dangereuses (Mobil Touring Theatre) Patsy Cline – The Musical (West End and UK Tours) Peter Pan – The British Musical (West End); Tapping Harlem (UK Tour); Hobson’s Choice (Chichester and UK Tours); The Famous Five (UK Tour); Therese Raquin (Royal Opera / Garden Venture Regional Tour); The Dybbuk (Manchester, Lille, Maubeuge and Malmo) and a fourteen year association with the West End production of The Woman in Black (eleven UK Tours, Hong Kong and Singapore).

Tony has also toured with the RSC, Welsh National Opera and has worked for the Lighting Departments of English National Opera, The Royal Court Theatre, White Light and Garsington Opera.

Tony is a professional designer member of the Association of Lighting Designers. He spent six years as a Lighting Designer and Lecturer for the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and since 2003 has been a visiting Lecturer for Birkbeck, University of London. He was a review committee member for the National Council for Drama Training and served for eight years on the British Actors Equity Theatre Designers Committee.

www.tonysimpson.com

IPAF ​

BS 7909 

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www.imdb.me/Tony Simpson