His lighting designs for two smash Broadway musicals make theater world’s most prestigious shortlist. The TONY Awards just released its nominations, and Justin Townsend, international lighting designer and associate professor for performance in the Theater Department, was nominated twice for Best Lighting Design of a Musical for his incredible work on Jagged Little Pill and Moulin Rouge!—both also nominated for Best Musical. Townsend is nominated along with David Lander for The Lightning Thief and Bruno Poet for Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. Townsend, who has been teaching classes including Lighting Design, Collaboration, Stagecraft, and Concepts in Design since 2017, is no stranger to Broadway. His lighting designs include American Psycho (Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, and Henry Hewes Award), The Humans (Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award), The Nap, Little Foxes, Present Laughter, Casa Valentina, A Night with Janis Joplin (NAACP Theatre Award), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Other Place, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Hewes Nomination, OCC Nomination). His off-Broadway work includes Joan of Arc: Into the Fire, Here Lies Love (Public, Drama Desk for HLL), Vietgone (MTC), Pretty Filthy (Civilians), Mr. Burns, a Post Electric Play (Playwrights), Odyssey, A Winter’s Tale (Publicworks), and Venus at Signature Theater; and Unnatural Acts (Classic Stage Company, Lucille Lortel Award). Townsend also won the Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Lighting Design in 2014.
