Lighting & Theatre

You have to be really good, sometimes, to make bad. Take words on the page.  It’s hard enough writing ‘natural’ dialogue.  ‘Natural’ dialogue, on the page, sounds utterly unnatural.  It’s very kinda yeah um so… […]

… that technicians can’t.  This could also extend to musicians, dancers, any artisty type really that the director doesn’t want to upset.  I hasten to add that 99% of all actors and artists I’ve ever […]

Last night I slept 8 unbroken hours for the first time in… oooh… a while.  It’s been another tech-tastic week, and it’s not quite over yet…. Thankfully!  When I come to that point where I’m […]

As a lighting designer, I’m sometimes asked to make things ‘blue’.  Here is what ‘blue’ means to me: Daylight blue – the cheating blue that turns a yellow tungsten lens to the not-quite-white of daylight […]

Things I have learned while lighting music gigs: 1.  You can’t have too many fingers.  In theatre, you create a state, make it balanced and beautiful, save it, and move on.  In music, you layer […]

So again I’ve been reminded that I’m ‘scary’. In theatre I can be very scary indeed in the face of inadequacy and incompetence, and this is fine and I will not apologise for it.  If […]

Before I begin, let me say: I have worked on dozens of shows with amazing and wonderful people.  The thought process that follows describes rare, bad moments.  Alas, however, the bad moments are always more […]

So as part of this twitter thing, I’m trying something new.  For the next week or so, I’m in Edinburgh as a lighting designer, working on a show on the Fringe called Crazy Glue.  And […]

I wish I didn’t have to say this, but a lot of the time, anywhere between 30-80% of a lighting designer’s job is a battle against adversity.  On massive productions this may not be the […]

I love it when you reach a point in a creative relationship where you get to say ‘no’.  There are various different levels of conversation you can have with a director or designer.  With someone […]

I don’t watch Eurovision. Honestly, it’s just not my cuppa tea, even as a curious lighting designer who sometimes lights music.  And if I do watch, I tend to turn the sound down. For any […]

I have now been a theatre lighting designer for three years and… oooh… six months, give or take.  I say ‘I have been’ but in my first secondment out of RADA a large part of […]