JUSTIN Ellington - COmposer - SOund designer - educator
Justin Ellington's career has encompassed the roles of composer, sound designer, arranger, music director, producer, and educator. Raised in Atlanta and a graduate of Tri-Cities High School, his work in theater, film, and the record industry spans jazz, classical, blues, world, and contemporary styles.
Ellington is a three-time Tony Award nominee for Best Sound Design of a Play: for August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone (2026, dir. Debbie Allen), Jaja's African Hair Braiding (2024, with video designer Stefania Bulbarella), and for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (2022). His other recent Broadway sound design credits include Proof, Othello, Our Town, McNeal, Home, The Cottage, Ohio State Murders, Topdog/Underdog, Clyde's, Pass Over, and Other Desert Cities.
Off-Broadway, Ellington has worked with New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Lincoln Center Theater, Ars Nova, The Acting Company, The Public Theater, and Theatre for a New Audience. His regional theater credits include The Guthrie, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Goodman Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Children's Theatre Company, Center Theatre Group, Geffen Playhouse, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and the Alliance Theatre. Internationally, he has collaborated with the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Old Vic, the National Theatre of London, Stratford Festival, Windybrow Arts Festival, and Tweetakt Festival, among others.
He is a frequent collaborator with Audible and Penguin Random House, for whom he has designed and composed music for numerous audiobooks. In the recording industry, he is a Grammy Certificate recipient and an ASCAP Award winner. He has also received OBIE, Audelco, and Henry Hewes Design Awards for his work in the theater, and his sound design for the MOVE ACT FREE exhibit at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights earned a Cinema in Industry Award. He currently serves as a lecturer in Sound Design at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.
AWARDS & TEACHING
Justin Ellington is a three-time Tony Award nominee for Best Sound Design of a Play. He is an ASCAP Award winner and Grammy Certificate recipient for his work in the recording industry, and has received OBIE, Audelco, and Henry Hewes Design Awards for his work in the theater. He currently serves as a lecturer in Sound Design at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.