Arts and Entertainment

Beckie Morris to set the stage Dufferin Arts Council’s second After 5 Salon

September 17, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Following the sold-out success of the first After 5 Salon in Hockley Village, the Dufferin Arts Council (DAC) is holding a second Salon event on Oct. 7.

Featuring award-winning, Orangeville-based set designer Beckie Morris as a speaker, the event will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Museum of Dufferin’s Corbetton Church.

“It is such a pleasure to speak to a group who are coming to hear me on this subject –– it is a joy,” said Morris. “From concept to finish, a set can go sideways and putting it on paper is my very favourite topic. So, I’m really glad to do this.”

As a freelance set designer outside Orangeville as well, Morris is the production and event manager for Theatre Orangeville, where she has been part of the team for over 20 years. She was offered her first professional set design role with the organization, and as the resident scenic designer, she essentially designs all the sets for each production.

During the Salon, she will talk about how designing sets for so many years has influenced the rest of her life.

Over the years, she has done work for a number of other theatres, as far away as Quebec and PEI.

In 2023, Morris did Appropriate as a co-design with Steve Lucas for The Coalmine Theatre in Toronto, which won a DORA Award for Set Design.

Her artwork appears on utility boxes around town, and several of her murals adorn the walls of buildings in Orangeville. It keeps her busy, and her talk will give her audience an idea of how she manages it all.

The process of designing a set begins with meeting the play’s director. Morris offers her ideas, which the director can accept right away or send back to the drawing board.

Designing a set is an artistic endeavour, but it must also reflect the feelings and dreams of others, in sync with the play’s mood and needs as the story unfolds, while working with the crew who design other aspects of the production.

Morris started on the road with courses at the technical school at Fanshawe College in London, Ont. In the course of her talk, she could offer a touch on those early days and her own steady climb to learn all that she could about the challenges and conquering them.

Even now, and for the last seven years, Morris has been the set designer for the acting program at Fanshawe College.

It is the tremendous life of relationships that might drive her talk about set designing, for the team of talented and wonderful people with whom she deals daily to discuss her own “crazy ideas” and how the enthusiasm and skill of others make those unique, fascinating ideas happen.

Morris’ sets welcome the audience in and give the story space and continuity in sometimes extraordinary ways.

Very frequently, the curtain opens to a view of the set, and there could be seconds pass before the first action takes place, but those early seconds are enough for the audience’s first impression, that initial breath of liking or less, how much they are open to what comes next.

Morris quickly credits the importance of the other designers of every play or show: the lighting and sound designers who define the timing, mood, and progression of the story, within the environment created for the actors and their tales.

One thing will be clear in the course of Morris’s talk: her appreciation of how lucky and blessed she feels about her life and the people in it.

To young people interested in this as a career, she encourages them to “try it all, especially young students,” she advises, while cautioning, “this job is not glamorous, working with the team is great. But you can’t be closed to the idea of always learning.”

For tickets, visit:

zeffy.com/en-CA/ticketing/after-5-arts-salon-with-beckie-morris-from-theatre-orangeville

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