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TL;DR (2 minute summary; plz read if nothing else)
The bare minimum to design a show when you're starting from scratch:
- You need to figure out what the lights available to you are and what they do. Have someone explain the uses of Source fours, PARs, LEDs to you, as well as what gels are.
- You should be familiar with the idea of a light plot and the information people expect on it - readability and actual content. See the attached example plot, and ask people for plots in the same space as you're working. Generally, you should try to at least be able to light people from the front and the back. Colors, light and other things are even more exciting. Make sure you have light in all the places people walk (go to Designer Run to find out where that is)
- You should be familiar with all the play-world locations (ideally all the scenes [ideally, read the script]) in the play and think about what they look like.
- You, or the master electrician (talk to them to figure out where division of responsibility lies) will coordinate the hanging of lights onto the ceiling during or around put-in, and then you will focus the lights; i.e. point them in the right places.
- During tech, you'll combine the things you thought about before (where people are onstage, what world they are in) into cues which are "snapshots" - saved 'looks' which the board remembers how bright each light is (and color, place, etc. if you're using intelligent fixtures). This can take a while.
- Once all your cues are written, all you have to do is press "go" at the same time every day (or get someone else to), and the board will do the rest.
- There's also strike but that's just put-in in reverse. Make sure you take gobos (cut-out patterns) out of lights.
Overview
The very first thing you need to do as lighting designer is familiarize yourself with the script, read it (probably more than once). Pick out themes that you think are important and might be able to translate into different looks. (Contrasts tend to be easy to work with: winter vs. spring, Egypt vs. Rome, etc.) Meet with the director, find out what they want to emphasize and if they have any ideas about how they want the stage to be lit. At this stage, take in all suggestions you can get — feasibility can be worked out later. Once you have an idea of how you want the scenes to look (generally after the semifinal set design is due), you need to figure out if you can do it. The two main spaces the Ensemble uses are Kresge Little Theater and La Sala de Puerto Rico. KLT has a large stock (an inventory list is in the PDF attached to this page). Sala's inventory (salainv.xls) is a bit smaller.
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