UC San Diego

Lighting design, like scenic and costume design, is a visual form of art. However, unlike scenic and costume design, lighting is not tangible. Because of this, we oftentimes cannot have literal representations of what a playwright describes in their script. Of course, when a script describes a sunny day, a cloud template could be projected onto the set, or when a play is set in someone’s home, practicals could be added to illuminate the space. However, a play usually extends beyond its setting — there are characters who inhabit the space to tell the highs and lows of the story. How then, does one design with light?

In my creative process, the main focus of my design is the emotional arc of the story. It is important for me to pull from my own personal life and emotions, so I am able to inform my designs with firsthand experience. Because my work relies heavily on my personal experiences, it is important to me that a show’s creative team properly represents the story being told. When I have a direct connection to the script, my job becomes more than just turning the lights on; I am able to make the lighting an extension of myself, thus an extension of the characters in the play. In turn, the lighting almost becomes a character of its own. As Robert Edmond Jones describes it, it is “the livingness of light.”

In the following thesis, I will describe my creative process of translating text into lighting design through a case study of UCSD’s Fall 2022 production of Clare Barron’s Dance Nation..