- Venue – High School Theatre
- Size – 600+ seats
- Role – Lighting Designer, Lighting Board Operator (PAID)
This was my first paid job. And it paid quite well! The graduating senior that was in charge of lighting at my school recommended me to this client. I had a brief interview and was given the position.
The show was a three day event held over a weekend. The schedule was very compressed with extremely limited rehearsal time and multiple performances each day. The performers ranged from very young children just getting started, to high schoolers working on some pretty advanced pieces.
The show was completely sold out every time, so it was an intense few days.
I was solely responsible for all lighting design, and operating the lighting during each performance. Fortunately the show was at my high school, so I was very familiar with the venue and equipment.
Our system is an ETC Nomad digital system, running on a PC. The auditorium has a variety of Source 4s, Fresnels, LED flood lights, manual spot lights, zooms and house lights.
Due to the very short period of prep time, I created a set of basic cues and refined them during the performance.
It was quite a challenging production as the organizers were understandably very focused on the performers and just wanted me to make everything work. There were also a number of very active parents with copious notes.
After the first day, I was tired and pretty concerned about the next two days. But day 2 went much more smoothly and the organizers made a point of thanking me for getting up to speed so quickly. This really boosted my confidence.
I think my biggest takeaway from this experience was realizing that I can handle this type of pressure. While I would have loved more time to prep and tweak things, everyone was happy with the end result. And even better, I got paid!
