Virgil Charles Johnson has been an active professional costume designer in regional theatre for the past 45 years. His designs have been seen at the Steppenwolf Theater, Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST), Court Theater, Northlight Theater, Missouri Repertory Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, Asolo Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Body Politic, Victory Gardens Theater, and the Goodman Theatre (GT) (1969-1997). Productions for the GT included THE WINTER'S TALE and THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR, directed by Frank Galati; THE VISIT and RICHARD III both directed by David Petrarca; and A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC and AS YOU LIKE IT directed by Michael Maggio. Both THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR and A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC won the coveted Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Costume Design. More recently, he designed THE CRUCIBLE directed by Anna K. Shapiro for the Steppenwolf Theater. 
AMADEUS, directed by Gary Griffin opened the CST 2008-09 season and was preceded by designs for HENRY IV, Parts 1 &2, directed by Barbara Gaines that performed in Chicago and Stratford, England in 2006.
Mr. Johnson also received a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Costume Design for the Chicago Shakespeare Theater's production of HENRY IV, Parts 1 & 2, directed by Barbara Gaines in 1999. In 2001, Mr Johnson received the Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration.
In Chicago, his work has also been seen at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, notably the 1990 production of THE VOYAGE OF EDGAR ALLEN POE directed by Frank Galati. He has designed several new works for Lyric's Artist in Residence Series. He is currently beginning work on Verdi's MACBETH to open the Lyric's 2010 opera season. In 1993, he designed the Amercan premiere of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's THE JEWEL BOX directed by Chas Rader-Scheiber for the Skylight Opera Theatre in Milwaukee.
Mr Johnson has designed over 100 productions in both the classical and modern canon. He has designed for a full range of Shakespeare's comedies, tragedies, and history plays; Shaw, Chekhov and Wilde; O'Neill and Williams; and contemporary playwrights as diverse as Christopher Hampton and Sam Sheppard. He is an engaging collaborator who has developed designs with other designers such as John Conklin, David Mitchell, Paul Steinberg, John Lee Beatty, Pat Collins, Jennifer Tipton, Daniel Ostling, Todd Rosenthal, James Noone, Neil Patel and James Ingalls. He trained at Boston University (BFA) under Raymond Sovey and Horace Armistead, house designer for the Metropolitan Opera. His graduate degree is from Northwestern University.