Justin Townsend

Justin Townsend is an international lighting and set designer for performance.

Nominated for the 2016 Tony Awards for The Humans and American Psycho. Nominated for the 2016 Drama Desk Awards for The Humans and American Psycho.

His Broadway lighting designs include: American Psycho, The Humans, Casa Valentina, A Night with Janis Joplin, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Other Place, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson for which he was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award and a Henry Hewes Award.

Mr. Townsend received an Obie for Sustained Excellence in Lighting Design in 2014. Additional awards include: Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Award for Here Lies Love, The 2006 USITT Rising Star Award, IRNE Award for The Blue Flower and Elliot Norton Awards for The Blue Flower and The Onion Cellar. He has been nominated for many other awards including: Audelco, Lucille Lortel, Ovation, and Helen Hayes Awards. Mr. Townsend is a member of the Obie-winning Theatre of a Two Headed Calf. In 2011, his work was featured in four productions in the American Exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial.

Mr. Townsend is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Brooklyn College.

LIGHTING DESIGN Broadway Designs include: Casa Valentina, A Night with Janis Joplin, Vanya and Sonia and Masha And Spike, The Other Place, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Outer Critics Circle nom., Henry Hewes nom.) Off-Broadway: Here Lies Love (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel), Vanya, Sonya, Masha and Spike (Lincoln Center), Milk Like Sugar (Playwrights Horizons), The Other Place (Manhattan Class Company), Unnatural Acts (Lortel nom.) and Galileo (Classic Stage Company), Lucy Thurber's Monstrosity (13P), Opus (Primary Stages), Speech and Debate (Roundabout), Eve Ensler's The Treatment (Culture Project), Food Project (Lightbox), Drums of the Waves of the Horikawa (Theatre of a Two Headed Calf), Beauty on the Vine, Palace of the End and Mahida's Extra Key to Heaven (Epic Theatre), On the Levee and the upcoming Luck of the Irish (LCT3). Additionally, he has made Three on a Couch, Thirst, The Fever Chart, and Unanswered, We Ride with his wife, director and performer, Elena Araoz.

Regionally, he has worked at such companies as American Repertory Theatre (Elliot Norton Award for The Onion Cellar; IRNE and Elliot Norton Award for The Blue Flower), Alliance Theatre, Arden Theatre, Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, Bard SummerScape, Boston Court, Cincinnati Playhouse, Cleveland Playhouse, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Folger Shakespeare Library (Helen Hayes nom. for Hamlet), Georgia Shakespeare Festival, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Kirk Douglas Theatre (Ovation nom. for Apollo), La Jolla Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, The Old Globe, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and PlayMakers Rep.

Internationally, his work has been seen at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Festival Frictions in Dijon France, Prague Shakespeare Festival, and in Cabaret Unkempt by Jennylin Duany which toured Central America, initially created in Miami, Florida.

He developed a Luce, or light organ, with collaborator Anna Gawboy to invoke the ideas of Alexander Scriabin’s Prometheus, in 2012 and had a performance at Woolsey Hall at Yale University. Since that performance the design has travelled to Utah and Cape Cod Symphonies

SET DESIGN Recent work includes A Winter’s Tale with Lear Debessonet as apart of PUBLICWORKS at the Delacourt Theatre in Central Park, A Night with Janis Joplin on Broadway, and Architecture of Becoming, with the Women’s Project.

Additional Work includes: Paul Bunyan with director James Robinson and conductor Stephen Lord at the Paramount in Boston; Odyssey with Lear Debessonet at the Old Globe’s outdoor stage; You, My Mother with Two Headed Calf at the Ellen Stewart at LaMama; 39 Steps at Portland Center Stage with director Nancy Keystone; Major Barbara with Two-Headed Calf (created first at the University of Rochester International Theatre Program and then recreated at LaMAMA Annex); Dysphoria and Top Ten People of the Millennium Sing Songs of Schubert both directed by Alec Duffy; Bone Portraits and St. Joan of the Stockyard both with Lear Debessonet; Twelfth Night and Miss Julie both directed by Jen Harvey.

Mr. Townsend holds an Master of Fine Arts Degree from California Institute for the Arts working with Christopher Akerlind, Chris Barreca, and Erik Ehn. He holds a Bachelors of Arts in theatre from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he studied intensively with Penny Remsen and Miguel Romero. Additionally, he has trained in Saratoga Springs and Los Angeles with the SITI company as a part of their summer intensive.

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