Theater Lighting

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses two kinds of illumination for the theater, general composition illumination and selective illumination. The paper explores early theater lighting that used candles, then the modern oil lamp, then the use of gas as a fuel source for the flame and finally, the advent of electricity that produced the greatest innovation in lighting techniques. The paper discusses how besides for illumination, light has another important feature; that of setting the mood and tone of the stage and enhancing the character of an actor. The paper shows how, with proper control, lighting can be used to reveal what the lighting designer wishes it to reveal or to express.

From the Paper:

"Lighting has played an important part in stage productions throughout time. It began simply as the light of day from the sun and the diffusing effect of the clouds, which of course were often unpredictable, to the current computerized state of precise timing, intensity and hue. The human eye is often called the mirror of the soul and that which touches it touches the spirit directly. Lighting in its various forms has an intrinsic emotional quality that can affect the mind of the observer long before any words are spoken. As darkness connotes mystery, brightness relays a feeling of certitude in ones surroundings and so on through a myriad of effects from limelight to fireworks and beyond. The history of lighting in theatre is by nature a map to our own imaginations."

Sample of Sources Used:

• "Scene Design and Stage Lighting." The Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. 2004.
• Babbage, Frances. "The Play of Surface: Theater and the Turn of the Screw." Comparative Drama 39.2 (2005): 131+.
• Graves, R. B. Lighting the Shakespearean Stage, 1567-1642. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.
• McCandless, Stanley. A Method of Lighting the Stage. 4th ed. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1958.
• Strawbridge, Stephen. "Listening to Light." American Theatre. 20 (2003): 38.

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