Donny Jackson is an award-winning freelance Lighting Designer and Theatre Professor based in Los Angeles.    

 

Work highlights include the New York premiere of Four Clowns (La Mama Experimental Theatre), the premiere of  A Singular They, for which he received a Stage Raw Award nomination (Blank Theatre), the Work Shop production of When God Looked Away, starring Al Pacino and Judith Light (Macha Theatre), the West Coast premiere of In the Heights (Casa 0101 Theatre),  Phenomenal, written and directed by Grammy winner, Macy Gray (Ramon Cortines Performing Arts), the KJAZZ Annual Benefit Concert (Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts) , Arrival & Departure (Fountain Theatre) for which he was awarded Best Lighting  by BroadwayWorld LA and Transition, for which he received the NAACP award for Best Lighting. His work was also featured on television for Into the Woods, airing during ABC's reality  TV event, "Encore!". 

​

He has served as Resident Lighting Designer for Four Clowns Theatre Company (2014-2016),  lit concert performances by musicians, Isabel Rose and Jesse Boykins III, and dance pieces for American Circus Theatre, Millennium Dance Company, Kybele Dance Theatre, and Motivating Excellence, with choreographer, Rhapsody James. 

 

Recent projects include, If I Forget (Fountain Theatre), directed by Jason Alexander, A Doll's House Part 2 (ICT Long Beach) and In the Heights (La Mirada Theatre), for which he won the Orange Curtain Award for Best Lighting.

 

Other design work includes, Driving Miss Daisy starring Donna Mills (Colony Theatre),  Father, Son & Holy Coach, executive produced by Tyler Posey (Odyssey Theatre), Old Man in a Big Car, directed by Dan Castellaneta (Fanatic Salon),  The Archer from Malis (Getty Villa), and 10 years as a Guest Designer at Long Beach Playhouse, where he has lit such pieces as Fences, Death of a Salesman, A Raisin in the Sun, Marat/Sade, and Sweeney Todd.

 

 He is the Head of  Technical Theatre & Design at Cypress College and holds an MFA in Lighting Design from the UCLA School of Theatre, where he trained under Tony-winning lighting designer, Neil Jampolis.