Jacob Nash

Jacob (Jake) Nash, production designer, is Head of Design at Bangarra Dance Theatre. A Murri man raised in Brisbane, Nash studied theatre design at NIDA from 2003 to 2005 and joined Bangarra as a roadie and odd-jobs-man after graduating. Eventually he moved into a design role with the company, winning the Green Room Award for Best Design in Dance for their 2010 production earth & sky. Appointed artist-in-residence at Bangarra the following year, Nash has created the sets for each of the company's annual productions, including Bennelong (2017), for which he won a Helpmann Award for Best Scenic Design in 2018. In addition, Nash has created production designs for productions by Belvoir St Theatre, Bell Shakespeare, Sydney Theatre Company, Riverside Theatre and the Sydney Festival. Since 2014 he has worked with Bangarra's artistic director Stephen Page to produce content for Sydney's annual Vivid festival, and he was the production designer for Page's film Spear (2015) and the short film Sand. He worked on the costumes for Baz Lurhmann's Australia, and was the production designer for the joint Australian-American sci-fi drama Cleverman (2016–2017). In 2021 he became the inaugural creative artist-in-residence for the Sydney Festival.