Toms, Carl

Toms, Carl (1927– ), English designer, whose work was first seen in London in 1957, and who first became known in the field of opera. In 1968 he designed the National Theatre's productions of Love's Labour's Lost and Marlowe's Edward II; he later worked for the company on such plays as Vanbrugh's The Provoked Wife (1980), Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986), and Brian Friel's adaptation of Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons (1987). He has been particularly associated with Stoppard: Travesties (1974; NY, 1975) for the RSC, Night and Day (1978; NY, 1979), The Real Thing (1982), Jumpers (1985), and Hapgood (1988); and Stoppard's translations produced at the National Theatre as On the Razzle (1981), Rough Crossing (1984), and Dalliance (1986). Toms's designs for Bolt's Vivat! Vivat Regina! (1970; NY, 1972), Coward's Look after Lulu (1978), and Osborne's A Patriot for Me (1983) were seen in both Chichester and London. As resident designer with the Young Vic, 1970–83, he was associated with many of Frank Dunlop's productions, and in 1989 he worked on the RSC's production of Kaufman and Hart's The Man Who Came to Dinner and on Ben Travers's Thark.