My lighting designs have focused on guerilla techniques for non-traditional spaces and productions. For her 2016 Theatre Project performance Subject/Object, Naoko Maeshiba turned the theater around, seating the audience on the stage. This enabled her to "swim" down the audience risers through billowing plastic waves, lit from beneath, and emerge from the first row of the theater as a newborn creature. Strategically placed household LEDs were used to prevent heat buildup to creat the "waves." For an appropriately warm look for the "birthing" sequence, small "hot lights" were placed in the front row.
After a second act that was a comedic cabaret, the third section of the piece turned dark and mysterious as the audience, now facing the back of the stage, witnessed a performance tied together by mystery, sound and salt.
The Shattering Frame was a unique noir tale of urban corruption, produced by Annex Theater in 2017. Director Trevor Wilhelms wanted a shadowy, fluid lighting treatment, controlled by the actors during performance. Four small spotlights were hand-held by performers and controlled from the dimmer system. This low-tech "moving lights" approach permitted many unique effects to be produced, which lent the story the demimondaine aspect it deserved.
The Fête of Mistakes, produced by Psychic Readings Company at Le Mondo in December 2016, presented a number of interesting challenges and opportunities. The performance space, lacking an existing lighting system or grid, became an intimate, claustrophobic theater that opened out into the wider space of Le Mondo for a spectacular finale demolition derby. Lighting instruments, ranging from LED flashlights to clip lights to standard theatrical fixtures, were used to create a subterranean "Cave of the Winds" beneath Niagara Falls.