The Next five Years: Lighting Design in the Real World
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Authors
DeHart, Stefanie
Issue Date
2011
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Theater -- Miscellaneous , Theater -- Design
Alternative Title
Abstract
I have been doing lighting in some capacity for the last eight years, ever since I
started high school. I always knew that I wanted my SIP to involve that part of my life in
some way, but even in my sophomore year I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to
accomplish that. In the spring of my junior year, I really started to consider what I
wanted to gain from this project. I realized that there were two pressing questions on my
mind. The first was what I wanted to do after I graduated. All I knew was that I wanted
to keep doing theatre, whether it was my primary career or an "extracurricular" activity
that I did simply for the enjoyment of it. It wasn't a question of if theatre would be a part
of my life anymore; but rather how to do that. Which brings me to the second pressing
question, and probably the more difficult to answer between the two- what was the next
step for me?
I've spent the past eight years as an electrician- and only four of those were spent
with any guidance from someone actually working within the field . So in reality, when I
first reached Kalamazoo College, I had some basic skills but a lot to learn as well and the
thought of designing had never occurred to me. I would later come to realize that the
work I did writing cues with my high school classmates was technically informal design
experience, but it was mostly self-taught and we didn't have any real idea of what we
were doing. I knew that I had never had any formal instruction so it was my goal to take
the Lighting Design course in the winter of my sophomore year. Unfortunately, or
fortunately, that did not go as planned as the course was cancelled due to
under-enrollment. However, I was able to take the class as an independent study with
Lanny Potts and also get my first look into lighting design. I received a crash course in everything lighting that term. In addition to the
independent study, I was also working as the Master Electrician for the Festival
Playhouse to hang a completely new light plot so my abilities as an electrician were
tested~ well. At the end ofthe quarter, I had received a solid introduction into the world
of lighting· design, but no matter how good a course is it will never. effectively
communicate the reality of designing for a show that will actually be staged. I had been
working completely independently to create small projects that only related to my own
interests rather than those of a director and design team. So even though I had more tools
at my disposal than before, I still had not decided if I wanted to pursue lighting design.
As I got closer to my senior year, I had still not answered my own question and it
was becoming more and more pressing that I did. I couldn't just be Master Electrician
for the rest of my time at school. That also wasn't something I wanted to do. I was
comfortable as the Master Electrician, but it felt as if I would grow stagnant if I dido 't
push myself to do something new. As a. result, when I turned in my production
application for the fall term of my senior year, I applied for the position of Assistant
Lighting Designer for Alison Shields and it was an eye-opening experience. I already
had a partial understanding of what a lighting designer does during tech week, but this
was the first time my input was taken into consideration during that process. Even as I
realized this, I also realized that I didn't know much about what came before that. For
me, the most mysterious part of lighting design was what happened in the time between
the first production meeting and opening night to create the final design.
Description
iv, 117 p.
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