Judy Gailen most recently designed the sets for L’Allegro, Il Penseroso, ed Il Moderato for Curtis Opera Theater, We All Fall Down at The Huntington Theatre Company, The Niceties at Portland Stage Company, Hook, Line & Sinker at Bowdoin College (where she was Adjunct Lecturer in Design in the Theater & Dance Department for 22 years), Much Ado About Nothing for Bates College, Precious Little for The Nora Theatre Company) , the premiere of Oceanside for Merrimack Rep, Carmen and La Bohème for Opera Maine, and Giulio Cesare for Wolf Trap Opera.  Other credits include the sets & costumes for Memory House at Merrimack Rep and Two Jews Walk into a War at Geva Theatre Center, and sets for Ten Blocks on the Camino Real and Aimez-Vous Ionesco with Beau Jest Moving Theater (Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival).

She has designed sets (and sometimes costumes) for Other Desert Cities, God of Carnage, The Game's Afoot, Boeing Boeing, Hearts, and The Imaginary Invalid (Asolo Theatre Company), Don Giovanni (Music Academy of the West), The Exceptionals, The Blonde, The Brunette, and the Vengeful Redhead (Merrimack Rep), 12 Angry Men (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis), and Game of Love & Chance, Babbitt, and The Prufrock Variations (Islesford Theater Project); Leap (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park); How I Learned to Drive (Trinity Rep and the Perseverance Theatre); The Mineola Twins, Sylvia, and Bill Harley’s Lunchroom Tales (Trinity Rep); The premieres of Syncopation (Long Wharf Theatre/George Street Playhouse), Eric Hermannson's Soul (Opera Omaha), The Turn of the Screw (Portland Stage Company), Samurai7.0:Under Construction and Krazy Kat (Beau Jest Moving Theatre), The 13th of Paris (Pittsburgh's City Theatre), The Scottish Play (La Jolla Playhouse); Eric Hermannson's Soul (Opera Omaha), and Sabina (Primary Stages), as well as productions for Long Wharf Theatre, Portland Stage Company, Trinity Rep, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Triad Stage,Maine State Music Theater, Emerson Stage, Yale Repertory Theatre, Anchorage Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, StageWest, Shakespeare & Company, Connecticut Rep, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Skylight Opera Theatre, Weston Playhouse, Virginia Stage, numerous shows at Bowdoin, Bates, and Dartmouth Colleges, NY Stage and Film, Signature Theatre, American Jewish Theatre,and the Yale Drama School, as well as Off- and Off-off Broadway.

She also designed and directed The Stooge: A Troubled Clown for Troubled Times and The Dark Clown and other works written and performed by her husband, Michael Trautman, and works as a graphic designer and reluctant web designer. A graduate of The Yale Drama School, Judy was awarded a 2003 Maine Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship for artistic excellence.