I was the Lighting Designer, Master Electrician, and Technical Director for this original rendition of Two Noble Kinsmen (by Aaron Smart and Cameron Houg) with the Sampson Alley Theatre Group in June of 2017. Below are some production photos from the show. They are exclusively from the fight scene at the end because that was when the lighting had its largest narrative impact (much of the rest of the show was in daylight).
Photo Credit: Rebekha Gherke Photography, Directed By: Cameron Houg, Costume Designer: Kelsey McHugh
This production has a special place in my heart, because there was a kinetic energy across the entire team and I felt somewhat proud of my problem solving skills given the unique location of performing outside. Two Noble Kinsmen was a completely independent production, which is unlike any production I did before or since, so it asked quite a bit of me to go it alone. The solution to getting light in the space was a fix I am to this day fairly proud of. At first I was tossing around the idea of having a bunch of fixtures with unique colored lamps or unique gels, but the power in the backyard would not support that many fixtures. Then the idea was thrown around to rent LED units from the student union building on campus or from Central’s theatre department, but neither group rented outside of their buildings in that manner. What we ended up going with was to use color changing LED bulbs (that were built application in homes), to place them around the yard using clip light fixtures, and to control the bulbs from an app on my phone. This solution allowed for a wide range of colors to choose from, the ability to easily build and edit cues, and provided wide enough coverage once the daylight started to fade. The challenges of this production all stemmed from the location, and we dealt with each challenge effectively as it popped up. We had backup plans in place for different weather scenarios and we took safety precautions to help protect from those same weather scenarios, we provided proper lighting for outdoor rehearsals, we coated the platform in water resistant layers, and we removed all dangerous parts of the yard (stumps, bumps, rocks, etc.) before rehearsals started.