Going Back to the Future of

Lighting Design
By David K. Warfel

Published in TD&T, Vol. 47 No. 3 (summer 2011)

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Copyright 2011 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.

GOING
to the back
FUTURE of
lighting
design
by David K. Warfel
The practice of contemporary theatrical lighting design has
changed very little in about a hundred years, at least from
one vantage point: designers still assist in live story telling
by manipulating rays of light to evoke emotional responses.
However, outside that narrow yet still fundamentally impor-
tant viewpoint, the profession is changing quite a bit. In my
practice, I’m using techniques and equipment more and more
from architectural lighting and digital media. A snapshot of
my experiences in a single year highlights some of the tech-
nologies and techniques now used regularly in the profes-
sional practice of lighting design.
Early in the spring of 2010, I employed two new light
sources and one ancient source for a single effect in a produc-
tion of The Velvet Rut by James Still at the Station Theatre in
Urbana, Illinois—light-emitting diodes (LEDs), a digital light
theatre design & technology
56 summer 2011
processing (DLP) projector, and a genuine Lekolite, the origi-
nal ellipsoidal reflector spotlight. The converted train depot
that serves as the theatre could easily fit onstage at the Grandel
Theatre in St. Louis, where, later in the season, I used brass
picture lights, plenty of parabolic aluminized reflector (PAR)
luminaires, and a liquid crystal display (LCD) projector to light
Yazmena Reza’s Art. And the Grandel itself could fit inside of the
Foellinger Great Hall in the Krannert Center for the Performing
Arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I
wrapped up the year, using more LEDs, a pair of 6,000 lumen
Eiki LCD projectors, and some veritable antiques—ten-inch
beam projectors—for the touring concert production, The
Baseball Music Project. The three productions could not have
been more different, yet for a lighting designer, they all pointed
towards the future of our profession.
Copyright 2011 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.
unstuck in a rut

photos this page by patrick j. keane photography

The Celebration Company, resident at the arena-style Station The-
atre, recently produced The Velvet Rut, a 2009 work by James
Still, resident playwright at Indiana Rep. The play is a thought-
provoking story in which a schoolteacher, witness to the mass
slaying of his students, is guided on a fantastical journey by a Boy
Scout named Virgil. Moving seamlessly through time and space,
from a church to a forest to his front porch, the main character
wrestles with the meaning of his own existence.

Max Tomaszewki and Gary Ambler in the opening

moments of The Velvet Rut.

The fire, using an in-ground LED RGB fixture and a Dell DLP
projector on smoke gray acrylic.

Starting the campfire with a real match.

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Copyright 2011 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc. summer 2011 57

A decade ago, the solution
likely would have involved
“birdies” underneath a Plexiglas
panel in the stage floor.
Some of the production’s technical requirements were a
challenge. For instance, the playwright’s stage direction in one
scene calls for a campfire that bursts into flame on cue. Our so-
lution to that particular challenge illustrates the convergence of
traditional theatrical lighting with digital media.
The Boy Scout character needed to build the fire onstage,
and there was no time for a scene change to prepare the set. The
characters simply walked away from the church bench, which,
according to the playwright, “faded into dust,” and found them-
selves in the middle of a forest. The actor gathered a few sticks,
arranged them in a circle, and flames miraculously appeared.
A pyrotechnic effect with live flame was never even dis-
cussed. We had a scenic budget of $250 and a lighting budget
of $75. We also had a lighting designer who enjoys challenges
and happens to have a closet full of gear. A decade ago, the
solution likely would have involved “birdies” (PAR16s) under-
neath a Plexiglas panel in the stage floor. Visible “flames” could
have been achieved through a silk fabric device like Le Maitre’s
Le Flame, though the sound of fans in the tiny theatre would
have been a problem. Instead, I turned to an eclectic list of
equipment that included a genuine Lekolite zoom unit, two LED
units, a DLP video projector, and two pieces of rigid acrylic.
At the beginning of the scene, the actor playing the Boy
Scout built the fire by gathering and arranging twigs into a
rough circle around two small Acrylite panels placed flat on
the stage. These panels were then set into vertical position in
a tab-into-slot method, allowing them to stand upright and act
as light and video projection surfaces. Made out of P95 Black/
White Acrylite from Evonik Industries, the panels appear dark
by day but, when illuminated, appear white, transmitting ten
to twenty percent of the light. A glossy surface on one side and
frosted on the other allows video to render (appear) on both
sides, so audience in the round can equally view the effect.
These panels, set perpendicularly to each other, also masked
the “lighting” of the fire with a real match, emitting a soft glow
that transitioned to electrical effects.
Taking over from the match was a single Chauvet LED-
splash fixture buried in the deck. The Splash is a DMX-con-
trolled RGB (Red/Green/Blue) fixture that sells for under a
$100. It provided a soft “burning kindling” glow on the Acrylite
panels. Several minutes of the scene took place in this setting,
until the characters erupted in a fight. Just as the school teach-
er pulls back to hit the Boy Scout in the face, the fire burst from
a glow into full flame, stopping the action.
theatre design & technology
58 summer 2011
This crucial moment was made possible through a simple
and relatively inexpensive video projection system. Located un-
derneath the seating bank was a Dell 4210X XGA DLP projec-
tor, with 1024 x 768 resolution and a mere 2500 lumens of
brightness. Tethered to an old iMac computer running a simple
QuickTime movie of fire, the projector cast the flames onto the
Acrylite, providing the dynamics of real flame.
Rounding out the effect was a second Splash fixture and a
Lekolite zoom with standard theatrical gel to provide a soft “fill”
from the flames. Each time I attended the show, patrons shuffled
around the fire afterward, trying their best to figure out how it
worked. Was it lighting design? Or projection design? Was it cut-
ting-edge or old-fashioned? The demarcation line is indistinct.
for the love of art
In my lighting inventory for Art, by Yazmena Reza, produced by
the St. Louis Black Repertory, I also made use of a digital pro-
jector. At the climax of the play, a character threatens to deface
an expensive modern abstract painting in his friend’s apart-
ment. It is a great moment in theatre, often eliciting a good gasp
from the audience. Will he really do it? He does. Using a fat
marker, he draws a stickfigure skiing across the middle of the
white-on-white painting.
On the Grandel Theatre main stage, the three-foot by five-
foot painting would be some distance from many viewers, and the
marker used needed to be small enough to allow for easy removal
of its marks in the second scene. Also, the sketch could only take
a few seconds of stage time lest the audience get restless.
Our director, Andrea Frye, suggested projection design
might be a solution. After much collaborative development, we
chose to take advantage of a blackout which followed imme-
diately after the defacing moment. An enlargement of the little
skier was projected onto the walls behind the painting giving
the audience time to appreciate the joke before moving on to
the resolution in the next scene. “Lighting designer” described
most of my work on Art, but this little bit of video snuck in.
Technically, this challenge was also quite simple to solve.
Because the effect took place in a blackout and included only
white lines (the highest brightness in projection), I was again
able to avoid expensive projectors and use an office-style Dell
LCD projector with 3000 lumens. I created the drawing se-
quence using simple shapes in Keynote, Apple’s presentation
software, and then exported the slide show to a QuickTime
movie. During performances, the movie was played on a por-
table DVD player. This projection system was also used to give
the whole set a textured look in the preshow light cue.
The lighting plot for Art contained, in addition to the digi-
tal equipment, a large number of conventional lighting fixtures
and a few brass picture lights, purchased at Home Depot, which
were mounted behind scrim to illuminate other paintings.
My work on Art prepared me for another, larger implemen-
tation of converging lighting technologies in a production at the
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in November 2010.
Copyright 2011 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.
photos by the author, except as noted.

The pre-show look for Art, making use of the 2000-lumen DLP projector.

The opening moments of Art. Tim Schall (left) and Ron Himes.

open season
The combined use of theatrical, architectural, and digital media
techniques and technologies in my personal practice of lighting
design came into clear focus with The Baseball Music Proj-
ect (BMP). Produced by Michael Mushalla of Double M Arts
& Events, an arts management company, BMP is an evening of
baseball with music, storytelling, and digital media. Hosted by
the legendary hitter Dave Winfield, the project is the brainchild
of Robert Thompson, a conductor, author, and music producer.
It features media design by the New York-based Boom Design
Group. When the touring show stopped by the Krannert Center’s
beautiful 2,000-seat Foellinger Great Hall, I joined the creative
team to provide additional atmosphere.
With a limited amount of time in the theatre, only twen-
ty-four dimmers, and the necessity to bring in every piece of
equipment I wanted to use, an extensive light plot was out of the
question. I needed a variety of looks and the ability to change

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Copyright 2011 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc. summer 2011 59
 LEDs, color scrollers, and LCD projectors create a moment during dry tech for The
Baseball Music Project.

A typical color change moment from The Baseball Music Project.

A detail of the projected texture

on the balcony fronts in the
Foellinger Great Hall.

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60 summer 2011 Copyright 2011 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.
them quickly in the twenty-four hours between slides, changing nearly half of the content in and role of lighting designer. Perhaps, as
the rehearsal and the performance. I wanted the two days of residency. the colloquial saying goes, the more things
to bring a variety of textures and colors to the Towards the end of The Baseball Music change, the more they stay the same. v
hall, but we did not have the time or the posi- Project, I was struck by the fact that every
tions to hang multiple gobo and color washes. show I designed in 2010 made use of multiple David K. Warfel is a freelance lighting
Essentially, I wanted my design to embody the technologies that were not readily available designer and chair of lighting design
romanticism of baseball, moment after moment, to lighting designers several years ago. Yet at the University of Illinois, Urbana-
while using as little equipment as possible. similarly, in each instance, I used of fixtures Champaign. He is a member of USITT and
My final light plot for The Baseball Music and techniques that have existed for decades. IES and an associate member of AIA.
Project included traditional theatrical PAR cans, I drew on my knowledge of the overlapping
some LED color wash fixtures, two digital pro- fields of architectural consulting and projec-
jectors, and a dozen ten-inch beam projectors. tion design, and yet retained the simple title
The ancient beam projectors were arranged in a
simple tree formation to simulate stadium lights.
The ambience they provided simply couldn’t be
matched by any digital technologies. I usually
left the beam projectors at just a glow, but as the
orchestra played selections from the film score
for The Natural, their intensity swelled to full
with the music. I couldn’t make them explode
and shower sparks, as they do in the film, but
the effect was nearly as dramatic.

…I was struck by the fact

that every show I designed in
2010 made use of multiple
technologies that were not
readily available to lighting
designers several years ago.

Color washes over the orchestra were

achieved with sixteen PAR64 luminaires with
scrollers and twenty Philips/ColorKinetics
ColorBlast 12 fixtures. I keyed off the images
provided by Boom Design Group, and the LED
fixtures allowed smooth transitions between
songs and narration. The LEDs were also
nearly silent in the acoustically brilliant con-
cert hall.
The two 6,000-lumen Eiki LCD projectors
were controlled by a Dataton Watchout system.
I projected simple still images, masked to the
white balcony boxes, to provide various tex-
tures for different numbers. Images included
my own photography and new Photoshop
graphics that were coordinated with the LEDs
and the color wash on the orchestra. The Wa-
tchout system essentially delivered the digital
equivalent of custom glass patterns, or gobos,
and it allowed me to quickly customize the

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Copyright 2011 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc. summer 2011 61