By Frank Loesser
Produced by: Anderlin Arts
Directed by: Jeremy Anderson
Photos by: Megan Slaker
When I first met with Jeremy to discuss his production of Guys and Dolls, he was excited about the flashy appeal of Broadway alongside these passionate and distinctive characters. The scenic design would be a minimalist approach with a few signs and other small set pieces flown in to help establish locations. His vision was for the signs to resemble Broadway Marquees, so they needed working lights on them. That proved to be quite the fun, yet time consuming effect as we loaded into the space on a Monday for opening on Friday. The signs and flats themselves were wired, but with a small crew I was the Lighting Designer and Master Electrician. For much of the week of tech I was discovering what was already in the existing plot, hanging and focusing my changes, making cable for the practicals, cabling the practicals, and writing all the light cues. It was a busy week being creative and efficient, with limited time and resources.
For the rest of the lighting design I chose to roughly set time of day since Broadway can be just as bright at night. Because of the open stage, I wanted to utilize the cyc to help tell the story of the scene. I focused on developing color themes for the characters. Adelaide was a magenta. The Mission was purple. Nathan and Sky had blue tones. The gamblers I added a little green to the cyc every time they were on to represent their greed leading up to the sewer scene where the cyc is completely green. I was amazed at how many colors I ended up with on the cyc. The colors helped progress the character’s emotional development while blending with time of day and location needs. The end result was really lovely and supported the show incredibly well.
