Making a Scene: 50 Shows with Jo Winiarski
By Kathryn Neves, guest writer
A hair salon, pink and blue and perfectly ‘80s. A pristine parlor of portraits, shaped like a Victorian picture frame. And a worn-through stage with faded red curtains—setting the stage for mischief, mayhem, and murder. This is just a glimpse of the amazing work Scenic Designer Jo Winiarski has put into the three shows in the Randall L. Jones Theatre this season. This year Winiarski celebrates an incredible milestone—her fiftieth production at the Utah Shakespeare Festival!
For Winiarski, scenic design is all about collaboration. She has fond memories of past productions, working with the directors and other designers to create something theatrical and beautiful. After over twenty years at the Festival, it’s the friendships and the teamwork that she values most.
“Working with Ben Hohman and Richard Girtain on the production team for so long creates a way of working that can only be gained after many years,” she said. Some of her favorite past collaborations include Les Misérables and an afternoon taping together a rough model, designing The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) as a love letter to the Festival, and her beautiful work on last season’s The Mountaintop and Silent Sky.
One of the most rewarding aspects of Winiarski’s work involves fitting her productions efficiently into the Festival’s repertory rotation. “It’s an ever changing challenge,” she said. “How to fit three shows into the theater, and have each show tell its own visual story. I try to think about it like one large play with three very distinct acts.” While there is some scenic overlap between the productions, each one is self-contained; the designs all share the same theater, but transform it each night into distinct and vibrant emotional worlds.
“Good design first and foremost serves the play,” said Winiarski. “I think about how to shape and hold the world for these characters. What is the emotional shape of the space? I don’t think there is any rule for every show, except that the play comes first.” Her design philosophy, while putting the play’s text first and foremost, gives her space to explore, evolve, and experiment. “I now make bolder choices than I did earlier in my career,” she said, explaining that this has created a “stronger display of personal design style while still serving the play.”
After fifty productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Winiarski has built an unrivaled legacy of design and theatricality. Other Festival productions she designed include Clue (2022); Ragtime (2021); The Pirates of Penzance (2021); Boeing, Boeing (2014); Peter and the Starcatcher (2013); To Kill a Mockingbird (2012); The Taming of the Shrew (2008); and The Fiddler on the Roof (2008).
“I feel very lucky to have been a part of the Festival for this long,” she said. “To have an artistic home is a gift that is not easy to come by.” For her, fifty productions “means knowing the theater well. It means always trying to find new ways to present the work to the audience.” From her first few years as an assistant designer, to her incredible body of work over the last twenty years, Winiarski is a Festival favorite. “I keep coming back because the Festival is my artistic home,” she said. Her work defines how audiences experience the Festival and its shows, year after year.
This season, come and see her incredible work in all three Randall shows. Steel Magnolias, The Importance of Being Earnest, and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder are full of comedy, heart, and spectacular visuals. With fifty productions behind her, Jo Winiarski’s work is something to celebrate—and to see for yourself.
