Ormerod was born and grew up in London, England. He studied law at
Trinity College, Cambridge before studying for a BA in theatre design at the
Wimbledon School of Art. In addition to his work with
Cheek by Jowl, Ormerod designed the
Royal Shakespeare Company’s productions of
School for Scandal (1998) and
King Lear (2002 Academy Production). In 2005, he co-wrote an adaptation of
Charles Dickens’s
Great Expectations (2005) for the
Royal Shakespeare Company with
Declan Donnellan. He designed Shakespeare's
Troilus and Cressida for the Burgtheater, Vienna in 2000, and
Falstaff for the Salzburg Festival in 2001. In London, Ormerod designed
Hay Fever at the Savoy Theatre, and
Shakespeare in Love (play) at the
Noël Coward Theatre. For the
Royal National Theatre Ormerod designed both parts of
Angels in America by
Tony Kushner, as well as Sweeney Todd, Peer Gynt and Fuenteovejuna. In 2000 he and Donnellan formed a company of actors in
Moscow, under the auspices of The Chekhov Festival, whose productions include
Boris Godunov,
Twelfth Night and
Three Sisters. For the Bolshoi Theatre he has designed
Romeo and Juliet in 2003, and Hamlet in 2015. Other work in Russia includes ''
The Winter's Tale'' for the Maly Drama Theatre of
St. Petersburg in 1997. With Cheek by Jowl he and Donnellan have produced further work in Russian including
The Tempest with the Chekhov Festival and
Measure for Measure in a co-production with Moscow's Pushkin Theatre. Ormerod was nominated for the
Laurence Olivier Award Designer of the Year in 1988 for
A Family Affair,
The Tempest and
Philoctetes and won the Corral de Comedias Award with Donnellan in 2008. Ormerod was appointed
Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the
2017 Birthday Honours for services to theatre design. ==Stage productions==