Press Contact: Natalie Thomas
December 2025
Members of Theatre Royal Plymouth’s (TRP) workshop have completed a bespoke intensive Graffiti Painting Techniques training course, marking a significant expansion of the theatre’s scenic art capabilities.
TRP’s impressive and expansive workshop is based at the organisation’s Production and Learning Centre, TR2, in Cattedown. From here, sets and scenery for productions across the globe are created.
Delivered in November 2025, the course was selected for its direct relevance to large-scale scenic painting, offering fast-application techniques and new textural and stylistic approaches, all of which, reinforce TR2’s capability across commercial musical theatre, opera and international touring productions.
The Theatre Artists Fund training programme is designed to support skills development through targeted training and apprenticeship pathways and was led by Brendan Cusack, Head of Workshop at TRP. The course represents the first formal integration of aerosol techniques into TR2’s scenic-artist progression plan, helping to rebalance earlier programme phases that focused predominantly on construction skills such as carpentry, welding, rigging and AutoCAD.
Brendan Cusack said: “As the Theatre Artists Fund programme evolved, it became clear that scenic art is a core component of TR2’s output and that specialist development for scenic artists was needed. Introducing dedicated scenic-art training ensures the programme supports the full breadth of workshop disciplines.”
The physical training was delivered by LJ Stonehouse, a professional graffiti artist and member of the collective The Rolling People, who was introduced to TR2 through Mike Vosper at Plymouth Artists Together (PAT), a community arts organisation specialising in authorised graffiti and urban mural projects across Plymouth. TR2 previously collaborated with PAT during the scenic build of Il Trovatore for Houston Grand Opera in 2024, and the successful partnership led directly to commissioning LJ to deliver this course.
Across the three day course, participants Katie Prouse, Bethe Crews and Katherine Murphey, explored spray-can control, cap types and varying line weights, fine-line techniques and expressive mark-making, tagging principles and movement, fast-coverage strategies for large surfaces and stylistic differences.
The training has already had a noticeable impact, with artists reporting increased confidence, an expanded technical toolkit and a stronger creative reference base for future projects.
Katherine Murphey said: “I learnt lots of different techniques using the spray can — different caps for different line sizes, how distance affects the mark and how to get fine lines. It will be good to put those skills to use here in the workshop.”
Katie Prouse said: “I think I could now look at graffiti artwork and tell whether it comes from the Philadelphia style — with its tall, stretched lettering — or the New York style, with its bubble letters and more artistic composition. We learnt how to throw something up quickly as well as how to make something beautiful. Being able to cover a large area very quickly is going to be really helpful in our work.”
The training strengthens TR2’s scenic versatility and speed, enhances TRP’s in-house capability for painted cloths, murals and large-scale scenic finishes and supports high-quality delivery for commercial clients and touring productions. It also demonstrates a clear investment in specialist skills across the team, complementing the broader skills uplift achieved across the workshop. By formally integrating scenic-art development into its training programme, TR2 continues to highlight TRP’s commitment to innovation, workforce development and creative excellence.
Read more about TR2 and the other spaces at TRP here.