DramaLit Blog 1.0: BU School of Theatre

I haven’t really posted on anything design and production-y since we started this blog, so I thought I’d write about a technical aspect that really gets me going. Jules Fisher, a lighting designer that has been working for around 50 years, is a person who’s work I am super interested in. He’s won a great deal of tonys (about 10) and been nominated for all sorts of things, but I kind of really like that out of the things that I’ve seen that he’s done, I haven’t really noticed the lighting. Jules talks about how an audience doesn’t really notice lighting, or SHOULDN’T notice lighting — if it’s good, it should just roll with the story. It is something that happens below the level of consciousness. It is visceral. Which is why I think he has been so successful in his field. And then it dawned on me — the job of the lighting designer is almost the exact same job of the actor, or the director, or the playwright. As Jules says,

“The magician sets out to entertain and awe by essentially fooling you with an effect, a trick or an illusion that belies common sense, reason, logic or the dynamics of the physical world. But there is a different kind of magic in the theatre. The theatrical lighting designer has a different intention: to penetrate the mind, heart and soul of the audience, to make them feel joy, love, danger, fear, conflict, excitement, dawn to dusk, heat to cold.’ If the magician wants you to witness the impossible, the theatre magician wants you to believe the possible. This is the magic of theatrical lighting.”

I feel disappointed that there is this divide between performance and design and production in my mind. It has gotten SO MUCH smaller since I’ve come to BU, and not that either one is better than the other, but I always thought they were such different things. I think this divide was created in high school, and not having any contact with production AT ALL, but God, it makes so much sense that the two sides be similar (since they are working for the same thing after all). This is kind of a half-formed post, but I just wanted to express how joyful I am that BU places such an emphasis on collaboration between Design and Performance. It really has opened me up to the possibilities that my own work can possess.

And with that, back to my point. Jules Fisher helped design the two giant light beams that come from ground zero every year. And… I guess… it is just such a wonderful example of how lighting designers can move and inspire people JUST AS MUCH AS ACTORS AND DIRECTORS AND PLAYWRIGHTS CAN. I know I am changed every time I see this picture.