Chris James
Consultant
Chris is a highly experienced sound designer and AVB specialist, with a huge amount of UK and international experience. He joined Theatreplan in 2024, direct from his role as Deputy Head of Sound and Broadcast at Royal Opera House in Muscat.
Chris has worked at almost all the UK’s regional theatres whilst touring and almost every major theatre, covering a variety of roles from sound engineer to production designer. He worked as Head of Sound on a wide variety of touring productions in the UK including Rock of Ages, Hairspray and Blood Brothers, and worked internationally as Head of Sound, and Associate Sound Designer, for Wedding Singer, The Musical in South Korea, and Million Dollar Quartet, touring the UK and India.
Chris also worked as a freelance sound designer on numerous productions in the UK including for Aladdin at Cambridge Arts Theatre, Sleeping Beauty at Corby Cube, Here Come The Boys 2021 at the London Palladium, Bollywood Jane and Giraffes Can’t Dance at Leicester Curve, and a UK tour of The Entertainer. He is a long term collaborator and Associate Artist with new writing theatre company, Box of Tricks Theatre Company, based in Manchester.
Chris is a graduate of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts where he obtained a BA (Hons) in Technical Theatre. Hailing originally from South Africa, Chris became fascinated with theatre from a very young age; an early memory was helping his dad to operate lighting at Cape Town’s Nico Malan Theatre when aged only three! At 15, Chris began helping with corporate and theatre events across South Africa including Nelson Mandela’s birthday party. His first official theatre job was at the Globe Theatre at the Gold Reef City Casino, where he learned stage management, the lighting desk, and began his love of working with sound. He is a lifelong musical theatre and panto fan and developed a love and appreciation of opera and ballet during his time working in Oman.
Chris joined the AVB team at a busy time and has been working on the designs for the Alexandra Theatre Bognor Regis and for the Epic Games Lecture Theatre and Motion Capture Studio in Serbia.
