Susan Benson

2026 Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award (Stages)

Set and costume designer and painter

Susan Benson is one of Canada’s leading set and costume designers, whose artistic vision has shaped stage productions across Canada and internationally. A creative trailblazer, she has designed for major theatre, opera, and ballet companies across Canada, notably the Stratford Festival, as well as for international productions. She is also an accomplished painter whose work has been shown in Canadian galleries and group exhibitions.
 
Ms. Benson was born in 1942 in Bexley Heath, England. She studied painting at the Wolverhampton College of Art, and worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company and BBC Television before emigrating to Canada in 1966.
 
Between 1974 and 2005, she was a pivotal designer for the Stratford Festival, serving as Head of Design (1981–83) and creating sets and costumes for a remarkable range of produc­tions, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Guys and Dolls, and The Mikado. She has also designed for Neptune Theatre, Theatre New Brunswick, National Arts Centre, CanStage, Mirvish Productions, Toronto Arts Productions, Young People’s Theatre, Grand Theatre, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Citadel Theatre, Banff Centre, Vancouver Playhouse, Canadian Opera Company, National Ballet of Canada, and Royal Winnipeg Ballet, among others. Her inter­national work includes theatre, opera, and ballet productions in the U.S., Australia, and Finland, and she has represented Canada five times at the Prague Quadrennial.
 
Ms. Benson has also devoted significant energy to teaching and mentoring younger designers and artists, guiding a new generation of theatre practitioners across the country.
 
Her designs are strongly influenced by her painter’s eye. “Design is like a moving painting or sculpture,” she says. Since retiring from stage design, she has returned to painting, exhibiting landscapes, portraits, and mixed-media works inspired by nature.
 
Susan Benson is a Member of the Order of Canada. Her other awards and honours include eight Dora Mavor Moore Awards, Canada Council Senior Arts Award, Canadian Institute of Theatre Technology Lifetime Achievement Award, Banff Centre National Arts Award and Paul D. Fleck Fellowship, honorary membership in the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association, and membership in the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. A book on her work by theatre and film designer Patricia Flood was published in 2019 by Firefly Press, entitled Susan Benson: Art, Design and Craft on Stage.