Sean Kenny (1932-1973) trained as an architect, studying first in Dublin, then in America under Frank Lloyd Wright. He assisted Wright in the creation of the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum's spiral design, with its interconnecting rooms and interior views of different levels, had a great influence on his work in the theatre. Kenny had no interest in creating painted scenery for a picture frame stage. He became famous for his solid three-dimensional settings which incorporated separate acting areas and allowed the action to flow from one location to another, unbroken by long pauses for scene changes.

Kenny's theatre career began in 1957 when he joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. His first designs were for Sean O'Casey's The Shadow of a Gunman. His next production was Brendan Behan's The Hostage (1958). The play takes place in a ramshackle Dublin lodging house where a young British soldier is held hostage by the Irish Republican Army. Kenny's settings simultaneously suggested the exterior and interior of the decayed building, with platforms and stairs creating the interiors and doors, windows and walls leaning at exaggerated angles. His success at Stratford East led to his commission to design Lionel Bart's musical Oliver! at the New Theatre (now the Noël Coward Theatre) in 1960. The structural set with its practicable houses, stairways, and bridges, was a triumph and established Kenny as a major, and influential, stage designer. He went on to design 32 West End productions in the next ten years.