Introduction to lighting design class given to 1st-year students in the Set and Costume Design program by teaching-artist Luc Prairie. Photo Credit: Vincent Morreale
The Set and Costume Design Program trains artists to imagine worlds and create the concrete conditions that allow them to take shape. By bringing imagination, research, and craft into dialogue, the program enables students to transform an intuition into a design that can be communicated and realized.
Students first learn to look: to read a text, observe a body in space, understand a space and recognize its possibilities. Through drawing, model-making, material exploration, and both conceptual and realized projects, they develop a way of thinking that engages the hands as much as the mind.
Over the course of three years, students develop their own way of seeing and their own creative voice. Collaboration, at the heart of the National Theatre School experience, teaches them to articulate a vision and allow it to evolve through contact with performers, directors, fellow designers, and production teams.
The program offers a framework solid enough to encourage risk-taking, yet open enough to welcome the unexpected and allow each student to forge their own path in the performing arts.
3 years of training | 8 students per year
WHAT MAKES THE PROGRAM UNIQUE
- A team of professionals, experienced practitioners in the theatrical world, support students throughout their project, from conception to completion. They include designers, carpenters, seamstresses, cutters, and scenic painters;
- Each student has the opportunity to design sets and costumes on several of the school’s venues: a black box and a proscenium stage;
- Students also have access to a props and costume warehouse, as well as set, costume, scenic painting, and prop workshops;
- Courses in various fields of set and costume design, such as circus, performance, film, and exhibition, are also offered;
- Last but not least, meetings with professors, coaches, and practitioners in the field help build up an extensive network of contacts.
Curriculum & Teaching artists
In Set and Costume Design, learning is rooted firmly in practice. The curriculum evolves continuously to incorporate new artistic practices and technological advances that are reshaping the profession, while also responding to the needs and individual approaches of each cohort of student artists. Design, experiment, build, and present: students put their ideas to the test through some twenty student productions staged each year by the two sections together, developing their ability to create for the stage in the process.
Throughout their training, students are guided by renowned scenographers, artists, and arts professionals from across the country, who share their practices, expertise, and know-how. With an overall ratio of two teachers per student, the program provides close, personalized mentorship, enriched each year by new encounters and perspectives. This diversity of approaches enables students to explore different ways of conceiving and creating performance spaces, while developing a creative language of their own.
A co-lingual program
The Set and Costume Design program is colingual, meaning that English-speaking and French-speaking students are part of the same group and attend the same classes. Candidates are not required to be bilingual, but an understanding of both languages can be an asset.
Teaching artists ensure that each student has access to the same content, or to similar content if the same content is not available. Each student must be able to express themselves in the language of their choice, and to produce and present their work in the language of their choice.
This particularity, which we consider to be an asset, nevertheless requires patience and understanding on the part of the students.
See students in action
They hired our Set and Costume Design Alumni:
- Canadian Opera Company
- Cirque du Soleil
- La Comédie-Française
- Ex Machina
- Metropolitan Opera
- Moment Factory
- Neptune Theatre
- Opéra de Paris
- Shaw Festival Stratford Festival
- Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui
- Cirque Éloize
- Festival TransAmériques
- Opéra de Montréal
- Théâtre de Quat’Sous Mirari
- Théâtre du Nouveau Monde
- Espace Go
ADMISSIONS
APPLICATION FORM
The admissions period for Fall 2026 entry to all programs has ended.
The admissions period for Fall 2027 entry will be from October 1, 2026-January 31, 2027.
The link to the Application for Admission form, necessary for all programs, will be available starting October 1, 2026.
Please click on Pre-admissions in order to register to receive important information about upcoming NTS Admissions activities and process.
You must be at least 18 years old as of December 31 of the year of entry at NTS.
PROJECT
Candidates have one month to complete an artistic project. Instructions are sent after the application deadline.
INTERVIEW
Candidates who pass this initial step are invited to an interview during which they are asked to present a portfolio of recent art or theatrical work.
NEED ANY HELP?
Read the Frequently Asked Questions
CONTACT OUR ADMISSIONS OFFICE
514-842-7954, ext. 163
