Joey Guthman has been making theatre happen in one way or another since he was 4 years old.
Thirty years later, he is living his dream as a Los Angeles-based and internationally recognized theatre designer specializing in lighting plays, musicals, ballet, modern dance, and intimate music performances.
He cut his teeth in the Los Angeles indy performance space, creating shows with playwrights and performance artists such as Lisa Dring, Kristina Wong, Diana Wyenn, Jessica Hanna, Kirk Wilson, and others.
Joey was the resident designer at the Rockwell Table and Stage where he designed numerous raucous musicals sending up classic Hollywood hits such as Hocus Pocus and IT, which received the 2019 Ovation Award for Best Large Musical. He also designed the smash-hit original production of Bradley Bredeweg’s Scissorhands at The Rockwell.
In 2017 Joey joined LA Dance Project as Lighting Director and began touring contemporary ballet around the world with significant productions at the Luma Foundation in Arles, France, and multiple world premieres at The Theatre des Champs Elysee in Paris. He designed the world premiere of Benjamin Millipede’s Bach Studies Pt. 1 which premiered at the Arsht Center in Miami and toured around the world.
After a 2 year COVID pandemic hiatus, Joey returned to the theatre and began touring and designing for the legendary Kronos Quartet and Memphis-based ballet company, Collage Dance Collective.
Joey continues to work alongside some of his lighting design heroes, Pablo Santiago, Brian Scott, Francois-Pierre Couture and Jose Lopez in re-mounting and associate design capacities.
In 2023 Joey became an adjunct professor in Lighting Design at Pepperdine University.
Outside of the theatre, Joey’s probably watching the Dodgers play baseball, cooking for his friends and family, or singing musical theatre ballads and patter songs to himself. (and sometimes all three at the same time)
