A dazzling display of fireworks, a fading sunset, a raging fire or an evening sky full of stars. These are all moments from our lives and moments I’ve had to recreate on stage using stage lighting and my background in lighting design. Next month I will be lighting over 80 kids in the Reif Theater Arts production of Matilda Jr! In this Behind the Scenes I’d like to discuss some of the objectives of theatrical lighting and how I’ll apply them to Matilda Jr and tell you a bit of my journey that brought me to the Reif Center.
There are five main objectives in Lighting Design.
- Visibility
- Revelation of Form
- Composition
- Mood
- Information
Visibility
The most basic of our lighting objectives, for the audience to see the actors and activity on stage. And not just in silhouette or dimly, when we speak of visibility most often we are referring to lighting faces. To light faces brightly we use front light aimed at the stage from the catwalks that hang over the audience.
When lighting productions with young children I tend to use more front light, Mommy’s and Daddy’s want to see their little angel’s faces! Matilda Jr will definitely have its bright moments especially during some of the production numbers that have the most kids; “Miracle”, “When I Grow Up” and “Revolting Children.”
My first paying theater job was as the Master Electrician at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks theater program where I received my BA in Theater and Minors in History and Education. While it sounds fancy a Master Electrician is just responsible for taking the light designers plot and hanging and cabling it, I have no actual electrical training! After a year of learning about lighting fixtures, dimmers and circuits, I began to design lights for university productions, with some of my earliest lighting designs being A Streetcar Named Desire, Of Mice and Men and Little Shop of Horrors.
Revelation of Form
This lighting objective introduces multiple sources and colors of light to create a more textured dimension to the actors on stage. Having all front light can wash out and flatten the features of the face.
By introducing Side Light, Back Light and Down Light we can restore dimensionality to the bodies and faces and set them apart from the background. By using color we can create shadows of that color to enhance features or establish mood.In Matilda Jr I will use multiple sources and angles of light to bring dimension to the stage and actors. I expect in the song “Bruce” to use red and purple downlights combined with bright side light to feature the dancers in this big production number!
After UAF I worked as the Master Electrician for Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska. My lighting design highlight while working there was designing the lights for the world premiere of Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz. It’s a very personal story for Paula and I remember after she saw it for the first time she broke down in tears and ran across the street to a bar for a drink!
After leaving Perseverance, I ended up in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi, not far from Tupelo where Elvis grew up and Myrtle where my Dad grew up! It was in Mississippi that I began wearing shorts year round!
Composition
Just as the director and choreography try to create pleasing stage pictures, the lighting designer tries to create pleasing lighting pictures without sacrificing visibility and form. I often do this by using gobos to project patterns on the stage. The designer can also use lighting to direct the audience’s focus to different parts of the stage.
I’ll certainly be using break up and leaf patters gobos in Matilda Jr. I believe there isn’t a show that can’t be enhanced by using gobos! There are also several scenes in the library where I’ll be shifting the audience focus between Matilda telling the Acrobat Story and the actors acting out that story.
It was at the U of M that I began designing lights for dance productions. Lighting dance is still one of my favorite things because you can you can be much moodier and dramatic with the lights. For dance lighting you almost always have lighting booms on either side of the stage. These are just vertical pipes in floor plates with lighting fixtures shooting across the stage. Most typically, we will place fixtures at a shin position, just above the floor, a mid position at about waist level and a high position around head level. These angles give you dramatic lighting effects for dance and highlight the dancers forms.
Mood
What is the mood of the scene? Happy and cheerful or Sad and gloomy? The lighting designer can enhance that mood with lighting. Warmer colors tend to suggest happier moods while cool colors suggest sadder ones. With the advent of LED lighting we have lighting fixtures that can create nearly every color we could want. But in most of our lighting fixtures we insert a colored filter, or gel, at the front of the instrument. There are hundreds of different colors but lighting designers tend to have their favorites, mine is Rosco #99 – Chocolate! It sounds tasty but it’s also a great color to create sepia tones on stage. I’m not sure I’ll be able to work Rosco #99 into Matilda, but I’ll try!
After grad school I applied for every theater job I could find! One of those was in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, but after not hearing anything for the longest time I figured someone else must have been hired. Then one fall day in 1996 I get a call from David Marty. Apparently, the reason I hadn’t heard anything was that the Reif Center was between Executive Directors. After David was hired one of his first tasks was to hire a Technical Director. At the time there were just a couple of high school kids doing all the tech work and one of them had just fallen off a ladder and broken his ankle! I flew in for an interview just before Thanksgiving, and before I left I had been offered the job! The first production I worked on after I started was The Nutcracker.
Information (Scene Setting)
Lighting design can tell the audience about the location, seasons and time of day. Is it an interior living room or an exterior forest? Is it summer or winter? Is it night or day? Sunrise or sunset? All of these can be conveyed through effective lighting design. In Matilda Jr I’ll use leaf gobos to suggest a sunny park outside and I’ll use string lights and specials to suggest circus lighting.
That first production of Nutcracker there was no opening party scene, just the snow dance and then the Act II Land of Sweet dances. There were no set pieces and no time to build any, so I ordered a bunch of different gobos! Snowflakes, Christmas Ornaments and Pine Trees all helped set the scene for the Snow Dance, Sugar Plum Fairy and Waltz of the Flowers. Our Nutcracker now has sets and drops but I still have fond memories of my first Reif Center Nutcracker!
Matilda Jr will be a fun show to light and I’m looking forward to it. I hope as audience members you will take notice of how we fulfill the lighting objectives of visibility, form, composition, mood and information.
Reif Theater Arts Presents: Matilda JR. Tickets
