Ralph Koltai (1924-2018) trained at the Central School of Art and Design. In 1965 he became Head of its Theatre Design Department, a post which he held until 1972. Koltai designed sets and costumes for over 250 productions in theatres and opera houses around the world. He began his career designing for the London Opera Club in 1950 and worked for all the major British theatre, opera and ballet companies.

Koltai was well known for his set design. He believed in the importance of finding a theatrical concept and his settings became a metaphor for the work being staged. Their strong sculptural qualities, achieved by the ingenious use of contemporary materials such as plastics and reflective surfaces, won Koltai many awards. His costume designs did not receive the same attention but Koltai's costumes were equally effective in establishing the mood of a production.

Clifford Williams's production of As You Like It for the National Theatre (1967) took place in an elegant white world with perspex tubes for trees. This contemporary setting was peopled by characters dressed in the fashions of 1967. The design for Rosalind in her court dress is recognisably 1960s in the straight lines of its cut. Koltai used a pattern of rectangles and squares enhanced by spray paint to suggest shiny silver fabric and the face cut from a glossy magazine added to the glamour. What the design deliberately fails to indicate is that the costume will be worn by a man. The production was famous for its all-male cast. It looked back to the conventions of the Elizabethan stage while capturing a modern sexual ambiguity. Rosalind, played by Ronald Pickup, was praised by the press for an unselfconscious performance which made no concession to the fact that the actor was male.