I was the Lighting Designer (as well as the Scenic Designer and the Stage Manager) for this original production of Dissent (by Cameron Houg) with Central Theatre Ensemble’s Ghostlight Lab Series in October of 2017. Below are some production photos from the show.
Photo Credit: Aaron Smart, Directed By: Cameron Houg, Costume Designer: Jackson Berhow, Scenic Design: Riley Allen
Dissent was another productive dive into a production led somewhat on our own. For this production we were produced by CTE’s Ghostlight Lab Series, and we had department resources at our disposal, but there were no design mentors or anyone of that nature attached, so it was an engaging environment to work through experimenting with a stark color palette as well as experimenting with texture. The success of this show was my execution of the design aesthetics. The show had a gradual dip into more stark and saturated scenes, so setting up a sense of normalcy and then transitioning out of it was necessary and I feel proud of. The challenges and failures of this show stem from the fact that it was my first experience focusing. I certainly understood how to run a focus, but lacked understanding how to set up a plot to effectively covered the place. This led to a couple more mornings of focus notes than I would have liked, and led to one or two dim spots in the space. Working through these notes helped fix these issues, but it was rough and, once again, without the guidance of a mentor it was somewhat all up to me. In the end it was a successful production.