193: America The Beautiful (Except The Financial Setup for Freelancers) with Jane Cox (Part 2 of 2)

Part two of the conversation with Broadway lighting designer Jane Cox.

 

Topics:

⭐️ Keeping overhead low

⭐️ Paying theatre designers hourly 

⭐️ Penny Remsen - Jane’s lighting mentor

⭐️ Paying for assistants / drafting out of the design fee

⭐️ Two recent design fees - one for an opera, one for an off Broadway musical

 

Video Version

https://youtu.be/1qBXKh3-QfM

 

Artistic Finance

https://linktr.ee/artisticfinance

 

False Steps - Off-Broadway Play

https://www.falsestepscomedy.com/

 

Jane Cox

https://janecoxlight.squarespace.com/

https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/jane-cox-115195

 

Sam Pinkleton

https://sampinkleton.com/

 

Stacey Derosier 

https://www.staceyderosier.com/

 

Accountants for Theatre Artists

https://www.artisticfinance.com/resources.html

 

Planned Parenthood

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/donor-services

 

The Watershed

https://thewatershed.org/donate/

 

Roundabout Workforce Development Program

https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/education/career-training/theatrical-workforce-development-program

 

1/52 Project

https://www.oneeveryfiftytwo.org/

 

Tech 25 in Pittsburgh (Jordan Gilliam)

https://www.tech25.org/

Website temporarily down as of July 2025

 

Brighter Boston (Aja Jackson)

https://www.brighterboston.org/

 

Design Action

https://www.design-action.com/

 

LA Opera

https://laopera.org/

 

Teeth The Musical

https://teeththemusical.com/

 

Playwrights Horizons

https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/

 

Elsa Hiltner's Designer Pay Resource

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1myTM4B4VGfv21iJovNLYiIopUtsDClzSGLsFOsAZHi4/edit?gid=0#gid=0

 

Penny Remsen

https://www.umass.edu/theater/about/directory/penny-remsen

https://www.linkedin.com/in/penny-remsen-1b53b8a/

 

Ben Stanton

https://benstanton.com/

 

Justin Townsend

https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/justin-townsend-117237

 

Brian MacDevitt

https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/brian-macdevitt-25766

 

NYU Graduate Design School

https://tisch.nyu.edu/design

 

University of Massachussets Amherts

https://www.umass.edu/theater/

 

Jane Cox is a theater maker, an educator and a lighting designer working in theater, opera, dance and music. Jane won a Tony, a Drama Desk and the Henry Hewes award in 2024 for her lighting for Appropriate, and has three Tony nominations for Macbeth (‘22), Jitney (‘17) and Machinal (‘14). Her creative career has been built on relationships; some of the extraordinary theatrical artists who have shaped her creative life include Ruben Santiago-Hudson, John Doyle, Elise Thoron, Shariffa Ali, Caitríona MacLaughlin, Sam Pinkleton, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Stacey Derosier and Sam Gold. Jane is also inspired by her brilliant students and young alumni

 

Recent designs include a co-design for Michael R Jackson and Anna K Jacob’s Teeth with Stacey Derosier; Donnacha Dennehy’s Land of Winter at the Irish Arts Center; The Weir at the Abbey Theater in Dublin (her home town); Felon: An American Wa