Patricial Ruel
Set Designer and Props Co-Designer

Patricia Ruel has worked on countless theatre productions, television shows, awards ceremonies, festivals and special events. In 1998, she graduated in Set Design from Collège Lionel-Groulx in Quebec. Since then she has worked on more than 50 productions as a props designer and a dozen or more as set designer.

Patricia has received two Théâtre Denise-Pelletier prizes, for her sets for Révizor directed by Reynald Robinson in 2003 and Edmond Dantes directed by Robert Bellefeuille in 2004. That same year, she designed the props for the Cirque du Soleil show KÀ, directed by Robert Lepage, with whom she subsequently worked on the operas 1984, presented in London in 2005, and The Rake’s Progress, produced in Brussels in 2007. She has designed the sets for a dozen productions directed by Fernand Rainville, including the plays Août, un repas à la campagne by Jean-Marc Dalpé and Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet.

Patricia designed the props for the Cirque du Soleil production Reflections in Blue, a show presented as part of the opening ceremonies of the FINA World Aquatic Championships in 2005, and she followed that as the props designer for the Las Vegas production of The Beatles LOVE directed by Dominic Champagne in 2006 and the 2007 XLI Super Bowl pre-game show. That same year she undertook the staging of Wintuk, and in 2009 was named Set Designer and Props Co-Designer for Banana Shpeel, which marks the sixth time Patricia Ruel has worked on a Cirque du Soleil production. She is simultaneously designing the props for Cirque du Soleil’s Elvis show currently being developed in Las Vegas.

"The concept for the set of Banana Shpeel was inspired by the aesthetics of Vaudeville, the cabarets of the 1930s and German Expressionist cinema," says Patricia Ruel. “We wanted to achieve a distinctive look that would blend the old with the new. We explored the dramatic potential of color through the play of light and shadow mixed with bright primary colors, while showing, through shapes, images and cutouts, the playful side of director David Shiner’s aesthetic.”
 
Patricia Ruel was born in 1977 in Ste-Thérèse, Quebec.