Napier, John

Napier, John (b. 1944), designer. No other British designer has found more success in America than Napier who designed the celebrated sets and sometimes costumes for some of the biggest hits of his generation: Equus (1974), Cats (1982), Les Misérables (1987), Starlight Express (1987), Miss Saigon (1991), Sunset Boulevard (1994), and others. A native Londoner, he studied at the Hornsey College of Art and the Central School of Arts and Crafts and worked in opera before finding fame as the designer for the Royal Shakespeare Company and on the West End. Napier's most famous sets tend toward the spectacular: the rising tire in Cats (1982), the rotating barricade in Les Misérables (1987), the multilevel race track in Starlight Express (1987), the helicopter in Miss Saigon, and the Gothic mansion in Sunset Boulevard (1994). But his work can also be sparse and effective, as in Equus (1974); rustic and evocative, as in The Life and Adventures for Nicholas Nickleby (1981); or moodily suggestive, as in Jane Eyre (2000).