
Emma Ashton is a passionate theatre designer with a background in interior architecture, based in Naarm (Melbourne). Over the course of 2025 Emma designed on four shows, three with VCA, including Coronation of Poppea (dir. Jane Davidson), Marry Me A Little (dir. Noah Gullan) and Watch on the Rhine (dir. Alice Qin). She also completed placements on five shows, Samson and Delilah (dir. Suzanne Chaundy) and Tarzan (dir. Alistair Smith) with Jacob Battista, Carmen (dir. Anne-Louise Sarks) with Marg Horwell, and Pride & Prejudice (Bloomshed) and Katya Kabanova (dir. Heather Fairbairn) with Savanna Wegman.
Emma has a love for reimagining well known works and has an enthusiasm for creating new ones. She hopes to use her skills in designing, sketching, technical drawings and 3D modelling to enter the Australian theatre industry.
Coronation of Poppea (2025)
Our version of the show represents the memory of the goddess Amore as she tells the story of Poppea's triumph of power and love as those around her are killed and ostracised for her to get what she wants. The fragmented columns simultaneously place us in Ancient Rome while also reminding the audience that we are inside a memory and not true reality.
Set Design
Director: Jane Davidson
Set Associate: Rhianna Sander
Lighting Designer: Stephen Hawker
Photo: Drew Echberg
Coronation of Poppea (2025)
It was important to me that this work could be adapted to transport audiences to the multitude of locations within the story. To achieve this I design the main centre column so the wall and curtain could rotate around the centre platform independently, providing a variety of combinations.
Set Design
Director: Jane Davidson
Set Associate: Rhianna Sander
Costume Design: Reuben James
Costume Assistant: Trinity Cardow
Photo: Drew Echberg
Coronation of Poppea (2025) - Model Box
In order to correctly capture the shapes of the columns and the accurate fall of the curtains I 3D modelled and printed the model for this work. This also allowed it to be interacted with more, with moving pieces, and made it sturdy enough for transport between the offsite workshop and uni.
Set Design
Director: Jane Davidson
Set Associate: Rhianna Sander
Coronation of Poppea (2025) - Technical Drawing
All being made from scratch, and at different sizes, it was important that each of the columns were drawn up with all of the details that the construction company might need. Using Vectorworks I created a total of 10 (not including their iterations) sheets of drawings that led to our final product.
Director: Jane Davidson
Set Design: Emma Ashton
Watch on the Rhine (2025)
After 20 years Sara returns home to America with her German husband and children for some respite from the war only to find it has followed them. For this reason it was important for me to create a world that felt comfortable and familiar in a slightly uncanny way that makes the audience question how safe they really are.
Set Design
Director: Alice Qin
Lighting Designer: Richard Vabre
Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti
Watch on the Rhine (2025)
My first time using a thrust stage, this show taught me so much about sightlines and the importance of detail in all aspects of the set.
Set Design
Director: Alice Qin
Costume Designer: Isobel McCauley
Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti
Watch on the Rhine (2025) - Model Box
For this work I went back to hand making my model box to give everything a more lived-in feeling, painting textures and patterns to enhance the desired character of the space.
Set Design
Director: Alice Qin
Watch on the Rhine (2025) - Paper Props
There were a lot of paper props that needed to be made for this show and, because of how close the audience was, it was particularly important to me that they were detailed and relevant. For the show I created a newspaper, letters, bills, legal documents, custom envelopes and advertisements for the cast to use.
Set Design
Director: Alice Qin
Marry Me A Little (2025)
Our version of this musical follows two young people over the course of their entire relationship as one of them moves into a New York City apartment building while the other is moving out.
Set and Costume Design
Director: Noah Gullan
Photo: Tamara Brane Gregory
Marry Me A Little (2025)
The cardboard wall in the background of this set was made by me and I learnt a lot about structure, surfaces and lighting before we reached the end of this show. With the help of Sam Martin, our lighting designer, we were able to achieve the exact glowing windows I had envisioned for the cityscape.
Set and Costume Design
Director: Noah Gullan
Lighting Design: Sam Martin
Photo: Andrew Signor
Marry Me A Little (2025)
This was my first time doing costumes for a show. It was important to me to display where they were emotionally through the confidence of their outfits, using layers they could interact with to show this.
Set and Costume Design
Director: Noah Gullan
Photo: Andrew Signor
Marry Me A Little (2025) - Concept Sketch
For me hand sketching an idea down on paper has always been the best way of starting out on a project. Overlaying some colour and shading to this sketch was the perfect way to communicate the small touches of whimsy I wanted to integrate into our final product.
Set and Costume Design
Director Noah Gullan