Jan Finnell Biography

Recent theatre design work includes Reunion: A Musical Epic In Miniature at the Theatre Row Theater in New York City, a project that began in workshop at The Goodspeed Opera House. Directed by Ron Holgate, it will open in March at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Opera credits include La Finta Giardiniera for Mannes Opera, directed by Linda Brovsky; The Frog Who Became A Prince, directed by Gordon Ostrowski; and The Merry Wives of Windsor for The Manhattan School of Music, directed by Rosalind Elias, with Spiro Malas as Falstaff. Other opera productions include Sarasota Opera’s 1997 season: La Boheme; Manon, directed by Claudia Zahn; Ernani; and the rarely staged Konigskinder, by Humperdinck, directed by Jacque Trussel. Jan designed and built costumes for composer Fred Ho’s martial arts jazz opera The Journey Beyond The West for the Guggenheim Museum’s Works In Process series, directed by Christopher Mattaliano and choreographed by John Carrafa. Regional Theatre designs include Twelfth Night and Trevor Griffith’s Comedians, directed by Ron Holgate, for the Phoenix Theatre; Speed-The-Plow, directed by Jay Raphael, for Cincinnati’s Playhouse-in-the-Park; and Jemima Boone, Daughter of Kentucky, A Tale of Two Cities (adapted by Wendy Kesselman), Rumpelstiltskin, Kringle’s Window (a new play by Mark Medoff), Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing, and The Emperor’s Nightingale for Louisville’s Stage One Children’s Theatre. Other design work includes corporate shows for Unisys, Astra-Merck, Pfizer, and Schering-Plough; commercials and print ads for Goldstar Electronics, AT&T, DuPont Fabrics, Air Products; The Robot Club, a live-action CD-ROM game; and five award-winning short films. As an assistant, she has worked on Broadway and for regional theatre and opera, television, and feature films.