Joshua Quinlan

Joshua Quinlan was born and raised in Oshawa, and now resides in the London, Ontario area.  An avid whodunnit fan, he has read the entire canons of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle several times over; his dog, Watson, loves the audiobooks. His love for visual story telling likely stems from a keen observance murder mysteries, constantly scanning the scenes for clues laid out by the production design teams.

Joshua is interested in creating immersive environments, blurring the line between spectator and event. He uses focused and intentional colour palettes and textures to evoke atmosphere and connect characters in unified worlds.

Joshua has worked with the Stratford Festival, Crow's Theatre, Mirvish, The Grand Theatre, Soulpepper, Theatre Aquarius, Coal Mine, Canadian Stage, Thousand Islands Playhouse, Capitol Theatre Port Hope, Terra Bruce, and he has spent more than a decade designing at the Port Stanley Festival Theatre. He spent his early career assisting many of Canada’s leading designers for theatres coast to coast. Most notably, he was an assistant designer at the Stratford Festival for six seasons, assisting on twenty shows in that time. 

Joshua is a recipient of the prestigious Siminovitch Protégé Prize, chosen by the 2021 Laureate, Gillian Gallow. He and Julie Fox won a Dora Award for their set design for Uncle Vanya at Crow's Theatre, 2022, and he was nominated for his costume design for Yerma at the Coal Mine Theatre, 2023.  At the Stratford Festival, he received the 2023 Brian Jackson Award, the 2019 Tom Patterson Award, the 2017 Ian and Molly Lindsay Fellowship. He has been nominated for the 2024 Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award, and is a two-time Pauline McGibbon Award nominee (2020/2023).

Joshua is a graduate of The University of Windsor, and he completed his M.F.A. in Theatre – Design at The Ohio State University. In 2012, he completed the 6-week intensive Production Arts Program at Off The Wall in Stratford, Ontario.