Gage Williams holds the rank of Professor and has been a member of the Department of Theatre faculty since 1994 and served as Department Chair 2009-2018. His teaching and research are in set design, design communication, American regional theatre and Broadway. Williams regularly designs sets for the department’s Babcock Theatre, and Studio 115. He founded the department's Performing Arts Design Program (PADP) in 1999 and lead that program until 2013. In 2000, he was awarded a University of Utah John R. Park Teaching Fellowship to develop curriculum in design for TV and Film. He served as a university representative to the Utah Theatre Association Board 2009-2018 and is currently a serving on the board of the Grand Theatre, SLC, UT.
Williams was the Resident Set Designer for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival (ISF) in Boise, Idaho, 1994-2008 and an Associate Artist with Great Lakes Theater (GRT) in Cleveland, OH 2002-2008. He was the set designer for the inaugural productions of the ISF Festival Stage at Warm Springs Reserve in 1998 and the GRT Hanna Theatre at Playhouse Square in 2008. He continues to design for both theatre companies regularly.
He has designed sets for numerous regional theatres and opera companies including Salt Lake Acting Company, Actors Theatre of Phoenix, Childsplay, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, Grand Theatre, Pioneer Theatre Company, and Utah Opera Company. His set designs for Anne of Green Gables at Childsplay and Hamlet at Idaho Shakespeare Festival were selected for the US Design Exhibit at the 1999 and 2003 Prague Quadrennial Stage Design Exposition (PQ) in the Czech Republic and is a featured US designer for PQ 2019.
His set designs have been featured in the United State Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) publication TD&T numerous times, and a retrospective of his work was a solo exhibit at the 2016 USITT annual national conference.
For television, Williams served as a staff Art Director for Bruce Ryan Production Design from 1990-1994. He continues to work in TV, and his numerous credits include designs for ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Disney, VH-1, and MTV. Williams received a CableACE Award for his Art Direction of the Showtime film Mastergate.
Williams holds a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Methodist University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Arizona State University. He is a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829, the American Academy of Television Arts and Science, and USITT.