Max Johns

By William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Globe, Headlong, Leeds Playhouse, Bristol Old Vic 2025-26

Directors Holly Race Roughan and Naeem Hayat

Set and Costume Design Max Johns

Lighting Design Joshie Harriette

Composer and Sound Designer Nicola T Chang

Dramaturg Frank Peschier

Movement Malik Nashad Sharpe

Fight and Intimacy Director Haruka Kuroda

Design Associate Hugo Aguirre

Costume Supervisor Jackie Orton

Wigs, Hair and Makeup Supervisor Gilly Church

Props Supervisors Emma Hughes and Gabe Gilmour

Production Managers Hattie Wheeler and Jacob Gough

Photographs © Helen Murray and Richard Lakos

“This typically summertime show glides smoothly into a winter’s tale on Max Johns’ spotless white set, candles flickering above. Cloaked in luscious, heavy furs, the lost lovers leap at each other’s throats at every opportunity”

Guardian

“Max Johns’ pristine white set features a long banquet table, and an inflatable snowman bobs above the stage. A sprite wearing a tutu saunters on to the stage with a capricious air“

The Financial Times

“The stark elegance of Max Johns’ shiny white setting suggests moneyed opulence and the most frozen of winters”

WhatsonStage

By Claude Debussy

Longborough Festival Opera 2025

Conductor Anthony Negus

Director Jenny Ogilvie 

Set Design Max Johns

Costume Design Anisha Fields

Lighting Design Peter Small

Props Supervisor Katie Balmforth

Costume Supervisor Evelien van Kamp

Wigs, Hair and Makeup Melanie Bouvet

Production Manager Ryan Funnell

Associate Director Alex Gotch

Associate Designer Alys Whitehead

Associate Lighting Designer Joe Hornsby

Associate Props Supervisor Poppy Morris

Painter and Prop maker Edie Lawrence

Scenic Construction Cardiff Theatrical Services

Photographs © Jorge Lizalde and Matthew Williams-Ellis

“Max Johns’s cubist suggestions of a castle supply a menacing background to the opera’s elusive events”

Guardian

“The paintings of Burne-Jones or Rosetti might provide design inspiration, but Max Johns has chosen a more industrial feel for his set design. It consists of panels that transform into a Jenga castle of movable blocks concealing windows and staircases”

The Stage

Composed by Avner Dorman

Libretto by Lutz Hübner and Sarah Nemitz

Longborough Festival Opera 2025

Conductor Justin Brown

Director Polly Graham

Set Design Max Johns

Costume Design Anisha Fields

Lighting Design Peter Small

Movement Director Adi Gortler

Props Supervisor Katie Balmforth

Costume Supervisor Evelien van Kamp

Wigs, Hair and Makeup Melanie Bouvet

Production Manager Ryan Funnell

Assistant Director Rosie Kat

Associate Designer Alys Whitehead

Associate Props Supervisor Poppy Morris

Painter and Prop maker Edie Lawrence

Photographs © Matthew Williams-Ellis

“This is a no-holds barred nightmare of red velvet and megalomania”

Opera Scene

by Tarell Alvin McCraney

Bristol Old Vic 2023

Director Nancy Medina

Set and Costume Design Max Johns

Musical Direction Femi Temowo

Lighting Design Simisola Majekodunmi

Sound Design and Composition Donato Wharton

Movement Ingrid Mackinnon

Fight Director Kev MCurdy

Voice and Dialect Coach Aundrea Fudge

Costume Supervisor and Hair Consultant Sophia Khan

Associate Director Tatendo Shamiso

Associate Designer Aldo Vazquez

Scenic Construction Rhys Gillard and Ian Penny

Scenic Painters Cliff Thorne and Tom Crossley-Thorne

Wardrobe Assistant Ruth Ramsay

Production Manager Imogen Senter

Photographs © Camilla Greenwell / Max Johns

“Max Johns’s design – gables, solid walls, a bank of white tiled showers – encases the stage in institutional propriety.”

Guardian

"Against an imposing swathe of red velvet curtain – indications of class-room, dormitory and shower-area disclosed as required (nice work from designer Max Johns) – the upright blazer-sporting pupils must hold their own, boys posturing towards manhood."

Telegraph

by Carmen Nasr

Theatre by the Lake 2022

Director Guy Jones

Set and Costume Design Max Johns

Lighting Design Jess Bernberg

Sound Design and Composition Alexandra Fay Braithwaite

Movement Quang Kien Van and Iskander R. Sharazuddin

Assistant Director Eilidh Gibson

Stage Management Sophie Acreman, Amber Chapell, Sara Cowman

Production Manager Phil Geller

Costume Supervisor Gemma Reeve

Aerial Consultant Joe White

Set Construction Top Show

Photographs © The Other Richard

Digital renders © Max Johns

“Max Johns provides us with a perfectly ‘unreal’ set to match the often-strange memories of what took place. The sheets representing the Himalayas strip back as we get closer to the truth, and yet they never peel away entirely just as we never entirely clear up the mystery”

Northern Arts Review

written by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Globe 2023

Director Ellen McDougall

Costume Design Max Johns

Set Design Wills (Paul Williams)

Musical Direction Michael Henry

Movement Direction Bambi Jordan Phillips

Dramaturgical Consultant Char Boden

Text Dramaturg Madeline Sayet

Additional Text Travis Alabanza

Costume Supervisor Jackie Orton

Costume Associate Maariyah Sharjil

Wig, Hair & Makeup Supervisor Pam Humpage

Photographs © Ellie Kurtz and Sarah Lee

"With costumes by Max Johns that blend Elizabethan period detail with influences from drag and the club dancefloor, it’s a twinkling, joyous tumult of emotions and affections"

The Stage

by William Golding

Leeds Playhouse and tour 2023

Director Amy Leach

Set and Costume Design Max Johns

Lighting Design Chris Davey

Sound and Composition John Biddle

Movement Natasha Harrison

Fight Director Kate Waters

Deaf Creative Consultant Stephen Collins

Lead BSL Interpreter Sarah Cox

Props Supervisor Nathan Rose

Construction Manager Abe Ahmed

Scenic Painter Gilly Whiteley

Costume Supervisor Claire Powell

Production Manager Mick Cassidy

Photographs © Anthony Robling / Max Johns

"Max Johns' set – which includes a line of towering black tropical trees and ferns at the back of the stage – is an Eden Project biodome gone horrifyingly wrong"

WhatsonStage

“Their plane crash lands in what seems like a paradise, but Max Johns’ monochrome landscape of black trees and white stone is immediately foreboding”

Guardian

by Travis Alabanza co-created with Debbie Hannan

Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs 2023

Director/Co-Creator Debbie Hannan

Design Rosie Elnile & Max Johns

Lighting Design Simisola Majekodunmi

Sound Design Alexandra Faye Braithwaite

Music Supervisor and Arranger Martin Lowe

Movement Bambi (Omar Jordan Phillips)

Assistant Director Femi Tiwo

Design Associates Tomás Palmer & Jacob Lucy

Production Manager Simon Evans

Costume Supervisor Lucy Walshaw

Wig Supervisor Sophia Khan

Stage Managers Sunita Hinduja, Jessica Thanki, Emma Skaer, Maddie Coward, Saf Horrocks

Fabric Palace drapery by Soft Tissue Studio

Cast: CHIYO, Lilly SnatchDragon, Ms Sharon Le Grand, Mwice Kavindele as Sadie Sinner The Songbird, Rhys Hollis as Rhys's Pieces, Sue Gives A F*ck, Tammy Reynolds as Midgitte Bardot, and Wet Mess

Act 3 Costume makers: Max Allen, Joey A Frenette aka Bourgeoisie, Fancy Boy, Alexandre Simões, Jivomir Domoustchiev, Bambi Blue @ Trashy Planets, Julian Smith, Noel Stewart, Lambdog1066, and Darren Evans

Photos © Helen Murray

Digital renders and GIF © Max Johns and Rosie Elnile

Trailer © Joseph Wilson

by Josh Azouz

Almeida Theatre 2021

Director Eleanor Rhode

Set and Costume Design Max Johns

Lighting Design Jess Bernberg

Sound Design David Gregory

Fights RC-Annie

Assistant Director Sepy Baghaei

Assistant Designer Maariyah Sharjil

Costume Supervisor Claire Wardroper

Production Manager Dan Palmer

Photographs © Marc Brenner

Design Renders © Max Johns

“The production is superbly designed. A stack of wooden crates are flapped open to suggest various, sometimes tiled interiors and the changing mood of the desert is captured on a large wafer disc that shifts in colour from a diluted pistachio green to a fiery copper”

Independent

“Max Johns’s plywood set, over which a sun hangs like a garish tambourine, features a Godot-like single plant, first a cactus (which has horrible significance) and later an orange tree. In Happy Days mode, a head pokes up from the plywood, the body buried, the mouth working overtime”

The Observer

by Jenni Fagan

National Theatre Scotland (The Traverse) 2019

Director Debbie Hannan

Set and Costume Design Max Johns

Projection Design Lewis den Hertog

Lighting Design Simon Wilkinson

Sound Design Mark Melville

Animation Cat Bruce

Movement Skye Reynolds

Fights EmmaClaire Brightlyn

Associate Director Fiona Mackinnon

Costume Supervisor Emma Clifton

Scenic Painter Megan Yeomans

Production Manager Sarah Wilson

Photographs © Mihaela Bodlovic

“Designer Max Johns’ versatile set – an arc of nine revolving, two-tier cells – reinforces this feeling of being viewed at all times: a by-product of the care system’s institutional surveillance, and a wider metaphor for the forms of interaction we all submit to now”

The Stage

"It’s hard to beat the special theatrical energy you feel when the cast bang out a revolutionary rhythm on the metalwork of Max Johns’s set"

Guardian

“A series of prisms, spinning in succession where scene changes will shift location, Max John’s design is superbly methodical, both in management and conception. Working as a narrative device, it’s also a tool of symbolism. These high-rising walls, containing children, secrets, violence and adoration – they see everything the others do not”

The Reviews Hub

“It’s very much like watching a morbid dollhouse play itself to pieces”

Edinburgh 49

by William Shakespeare

Swan Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company 2019

Director Eleanor Rhode

Set and Costume Design Max Johns

Lighting Design Lizzie Powell

Music Will Gregory

Sound Design David Gregory

Movement Tom Jackson Greaves

Fights RC-Annie

Assistant Director Anna Ryder

Assistant Designer Anisha Fields

Costume Supervisor Jackie Orton

Wig, Hair and Make-up Supervisor Rachel Seal

Production Manager Carl Root

Tapestry Illustration Ellie Foreman-Peck

Photographs © Steve Tanner

"Designer Max Johns has talked about approaching King John as a new play and the production tingles with a tangible sense of spontaneity. The show is loosely located in the mid 20th century but the set and costumes grow heavier and older – disco lights replaced with flickering candles – as the political squabbling turns deadly"

Guardian

“Max Johns’ design features a playful collision of retro aesthetics, all patterned velvets, clashing colours, and turtlenecks emerging from tweedy blazers. A huge tapestry serves as a visually intriguing backcloth, juxtaposing scowling lions and volleys of arrows with squadrons of military helicopters and machine-gun wielding gangsters, hinting at the cycle of violence and venality that lies just beneath the surface of our politics”

The Stage

“It looks sumptuous and glories in its chic aesthetic”

WhatsOnStage

by Josh Azouz

The Yard  2018

Director Ned Bennett

Set and Costume Design Max Johns

Lighting Design Jess Bernberg

Sound and Composition Giles Thomas

Production Manager Seb Cannings

Stage Management Eddy Allen and Kate Clement

Photographs © The Other Richard

"Max Johns’s cunningly simple design in which the pinks and Day-Glo colours of the nursery collide with floating furniture"

Guardian

"Max Johns’ design feels as if it has been fed by the disturbing corner of YouTube full of ‘educational’ videos that are meant for toddlers but are, in fact, the stuff of enduring nightmares"

The Stage

"The plush pink carpet of Max Johns’ goes from cutesy to sickly considering the incessant drug use and violence played out upon it"

Theatre Bubble

by David Greig, co-created with Wils Wilson

Manchester Royal Exchange 2021

Director Debbie Hannan

Set and Costume Design Max Johns

Lighting Design Amy Mae

Composition, Arrangement and Sound Design MJ McCarthy

Sound Associate Sorcha Steele

Music Director Malin Lewis

Movement DK Fashola

Illustrations Ellie Foreman-Peck

Assistant Director Maria Zemlinskaya

Stage Management Scott McDonald, Rosie Giarratana, Sarah Wardle

Production Manager Jim Gee

Costume Supervisors Tracy Dunk and Felicia Jagne

Wig, Hair and Make-up Supervisor Jo Shepstone

Set Construction Carl Heston

Scenic Artist Phil Costello

Photographs © Johan Persson

“It’s in the captivatingly strange second act that this production comes into its own. Max Johns’ previously sparse set is transformed, with pub carpets removed to reveal Ellie Foreman-Peck’s illustrations of the underworld. As Prudencia languishes in this hell, the stage slowly turns, while glowing rods of light form the bars of her shimmering cage”

Guardian

“The main delight to relish is Max Johns' design”

WhatsOnStage

by Travis Alabanza

The Bush Theatre 2020/21

Director Debbie Hannan

Set and Costume Design Max Johns

Lighting Design Jess Bernberg

Sound Design Frances Botu

Movement Annie-Lunnette Deakin Foster

Voice and Accent Fiona Kennedy

Assistant Director Amber Sinclair-Case

Associate Lighting Designer Pete Rickards

Assistant Designer Maariyah Sharjil

Stage Management Rike Berg, Crystal Gayle, Raisa Daya, Anna Lavender and Lois Sime

Production Managers Tabitha Piggott and Ian Taylor

Photographs © Helen Murray

“Hannan's direction allows Lyons to be incredibly playful, and this idea works a treat because Max Johns' set has so many possibilities for exploration. The design is vibrant and eye-catching and is also an invitation to cause mischief. As the piece goes on, the stage proves malleable enough to deconstruct and make a mess of - which is very exciting to watch”

Broadway World

“Absolutely stunningly designed by Max Johns”

Everything Theatre

NICCE Collection Launch 2019

Collection Designer Katie Eary

Stylists Sam Thompson and Alex Pantano

Director Andrew Whyment

Set Design Max Johns

Lighting Design Jess Bernberg

Music CVSS

Hair Jonathan Andrew and Fudge Hair

Make up Rebecca Richards

Production Harry Wolff-Evans and Mia Edie Roberts

Photographs © Charlotte Robinson

Video © Ceara Mcevoy

V&A Museum and Wilderness Festival 2014    

Performance created by Max Johns and Elly Hopkins

Costume Design Max Johns

An interactive costume led performance for the John Madejski garden in the V&A museum, with the brief ‘Shakespeare Tribes’, as part of the V&A’s Shakespeare Festival and PQ 2015. Expanding upon my designs for The Merry Wives of Windsor, and in response to the courtyard garden space, the costumes were worn by members of Owl Parliament Choir who used them to make mischief and generate festive revelry among museum visitors. The concept drew on traditional English rituals – maypoles, mummers and green men – to explore the aesthetics of tribal behaviour and retrace our lineage to a ‘merrie England’ of the distant past. Following the performance costumes were displayed in the Theatre and Performance Gallery at the V&A. The performance has since been taken to Wilderness Festival as part of their roaming theatre programme and the Yard Theatre in Hackney.

Photographs © Erin Hopkins / Max Johns