Jane Cox, Lewis Center for the Arts

Director of Theater; Professor of the Practice, Theater

Photo courtesy Jane Cox

About

Jane Cox is a theater maker and a lighting designer working in theater, opera, dance and music based in Princeton, New Jersey. Recent and upcoming designs include Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' (Princeton Class of 2006) Appropriate on Broadway, for which she won both a 2024 Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award; Michael R. Jackson's and Anna K. Jacobs' Teeth, recently at Playwrights Horizons and moving to New World Stages fall of 2024; Fidelio at the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center; Karen Zacarias’ Legacy of Light at the McCarter Theater; and a new play by Marina Carr at the Abbey Theater in Dublin, Jane’s hometown.

Among the extraordinary theatrical leaders who have shaped Jane’s creative life are Ruben Santiago-Hudson, John Doyle, Elise Thoron, Shariffa Ali, Caitríona MacLaughlin, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Sam Gold, Bill Rauch, Jim Houghton and Monica Bill Barnes. Other recent work includes designs for Destiny of Desire at the Old Globe; The Weir at the Abbey Theater in Dublin; The Marriage of Figaro, Cosi fan Tutte and Don Giovanni at San Francisco Opera; Fefu and her Friends at Theater for a New Audience in NYC, directed by Princeton alumna Lileana Blain-Cruz '06; Felon: An American Washi Tale at Princeton and elsewhere; OK Trenton at Passage Theater in Trenton. Career highlights include Jitney on Broadway directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson; Othello at NYTW and Annie Baker’s The Flick directed by Sam Gold; All the Way directed by Bill Rauch; a musical of Amelie, directed by Pam MacKinnon; Color Purple directed by John Doyle (starring Cynthia Errivo and Jennifer Hudson); and Hamlet directed by Lyndsey Turner (starring Benedict Cumberbatch).

Jane has been a company member of the Monica Bill Barnes Dance Company for more than twenty years. Highlights of work with the company include Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host with Ira Glass; a museum workout at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, partly developed at the Princeton Art Museum, with illustrator Maira Kalman; and Happy Hour, a piece involving karaoke, cocktails and suits.

Jane has been nominated for four Tony awards, winning for her work on Appropriate (2024), and nominated for Macbeth (2022), Jitney (2017), and Machinal (2014). She has also been nominated for six Drama Desk awards (winning one for Appropriate) and three Lortel awards, and she was awarded the Henry Hewes Design Award for her work on The Flick. In 2016, Jane was awarded the Ruth Morley Design Award by the League of Professional Theater Women and a British What’s Onstage award for her work on Hamlet.

Recent creative producing work has included co-organizing (and acting as lead academic advisor) on the 2023 symposium and creative convening Sound and Color: The Future of Race in Design at the Park Avenue Armory with curator and Chair of Theater and Performance Studies at Yale Tavia Nyong’o; creating a festival of community events around Felon: An American Washi Tale at Princeton in collaboration with Freedom Reads and more than a dozen campus units, and co-producing and acting as community director for a 120-person production of The Winter’s Tale (Public Works Musical) at Princeton University.

Jane has taught in the graduate Department of Design NYU (Tisch School of the Arts) where she also earned her MFA in theater design, at Vassar (drama department), Sarah Lawrence (dance department) and UMass Amherst where she also spent a junior year abroad. She has been teaching about light and theater making at Princeton University since 2007. Jane is a founding member of the Design Action, a group of theater designers dedicated to creating a more equitable future for emerging and early career BIPOC designers; a member of the Advisory Committee for the Studio School of Design; a founder and faculty member of Springboard to Design; and a member of the Advisory Council for the Trenton High School Theater Department. At Princeton University, Jane is the Co-Director of the Fund for Irish Studies and is on the Executive Committee for the Council on Science and Technology. She became Director of the Program in Theater in 2016 and was promoted to Professor of the Practice in 2021.

Courses

Spring 2026

Lighting Design

Spring 2026

Introduction to Theater Making

Fall 2025

Theatrical Design Studio

Fall 2024

Introduction to Theater Making

News + Links

“Lit from Within” | Princeton Magazine

Jane Cox receives WhatsOnStage Award for Best Lighting Design | WhatsOnStage, February 21, 2016

Jane Cox receives the Ruth Morley Design Award | League of Professional Theatre Women, May 2, 2016

Jane Cox receives Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Lighting Design for a Musical for The Color Purple | Drama Desk Awards, 2016

“Light & Lighting Design in the Museum” | Princeton University Art Museum,

“Jane Cox on LEDs, lighting design and the role of light in storytelling” | Discovery Research at Princeton magazine, November 27, 2017

“This Othello Is Powered by Women” | New York Times, June 6, 2018

“The arts take center stage in the entrepreneurial spotlight” | Princeton University, November 2, 2018

“The VIV NOMINEES — Jane Cox for Lighting Design, The Secret Life of Bees” | AUDELCO — Audience Development Committee, 2019

2019 AUDELCO’s VIV Award Nominations — Jane Cox for Lighting Design, The Secret Life of Bees| Playbill, October 15, 2019

2020 Drama Desk Nominations: Jane Cox for Lighting Design for a Musical, The Secret Life of Bees | Playbill, April 21, 2020

An Interview with Jane Cox | City Theatrical, April 30, 2020

4Wall Entertainment Sunday Roundtable, Episode 2, on Facebook Live — May 24, 2020

“Winners of 2020 Henry Hewes Design Awards Honored October 14” | Playbill, October 15, 2020

“Preserving Black Theater Histories” — Theater Program + CLASSIX partnership receives Dean for Research Innovation Funding | Princeton University News, July 21, 2021

“Bringing back Broadway: Princeton artists and students return to New York City theaters” | The Daily Princetonian, Nov. 28, 2021

Jane Cox on “How to design with light” | Irish Times, Jan. 2023

Symposium: Sound & Color — The Future of Race in Design | Park Avenue Armory, January 14-15, 2023

Video: Jane Cox Talks Music, Lighting Design + More with Princeton University Concerts | PUC on Facebook, February 2023

Lighting for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate on Broadway, November 2023 – March 2024

Lighting for Michael R Jackson and Anna K Jacobs Teeth at Playwrights Horizons, February 21 – March 31, 2024

Jane Cox nominated for 2024 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design of a Play for Appropriate — Broadway World, April 29, 2024

Jane Cox nominated for 2024 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a Play for Appropriate — April 30, 2024

A House Haunted by History: Scenery and Lighting of Appropriate | Lighting & Sound America, May 2024

Broadway by Design: Jane Cox Talks Lighting Design for Branden Jacobs-Jenskins’ Appropriate | Broadway World, June 3, 2024

Jane Cox wins 2024 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design of a Play | Playbill, June 10, 2024

Jane Cox wins Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a Play for Appropriate | American Theatre Wing’s Tony Awards, June 16, 2024