About The Lighting Archive
Welcome to The Lighting Archive
Modern theatrical lighting is a unique art form, whose history until now has been exceedingly difficult to study due to limited access to original lighting documents. The Lighting Archive website is developing a collection of actual plots, focus charts, cue sheets from real shows. We will place an emphasis on historical productions and designers who have made important contributions to our field.
These documents make evident the aesthetic development of the art form. The styles of the theatrical visual are affected not only by the personalities of the lighting designers but very importantly the interplay between what equipment was being manufactured and how the designers were inspired to use it. Another major force affecting the aesthetics and the equipment is the extreme time and reliability pressures that operate in the economics of the theatre world. How has the development of “the next big thing”; computer consoles, color scrollers, moving lights changed and enriched the visual possibilities? By a close examination of these documents, students and scholars can now witness the development of Lighting Design as it has made a greater and greater contribution to the theatrical experience.
We begin with Jean Rosenthal’s lighting documents for Martha Graham’s Errand into the Maze presented in1948. Jean is known as the first Lighting Designer to be credited as such in a program.
Contact The Lighting Archive ltgarchive@earthlink.net