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Alastair Griffiths Gives us a fascinating glimpse of the Artistry required in Lighting Design Some time ago, about Autumn of last year as I recall, Pat Richardson phoned to ask if I would light her next production The Heiress in April 05. Having worked with Pat on The Diary of Anne Frank, and collectively produced a show of some distinction, I of course agreed. Switch off the brain and get on with life. Later that year a script arrives, I read the play and get an initial feel for its nature and style. The first important step is to hold a production meeting so we can discuss the set, lighting and stage management issues. Just before Christmas I meet in the bar with Lee Tilson (set design), John Headford (SM) and Pat. Alively debate ensues for an hour or so around the model - how will it work? what will it look like? what are the practical issues? how am I going to get lights in behind the windows? what colours will be used? what is the is the look and feel that the Director is after? This is a period piece, half the play is at night and lit by oil lamps; Pat was after a warm period feel, emphasis on the soft glow of oil lamps. The script calls for four fixed oil lamps and two hand-held. Obviously the real thing is out of the question: mains and battery operated units are needed. I rashly agree to find these! Go home and get on with Christmas!! Late February the brain kicks in and starts reminding me I promised to light a show, now when was it ? What did I agree to do? First job find the practical (electrical) oil lamps, I phone round the local lighting hire companies with no luck, Panic!!! one suggests I try Salisbury Playhouse. Several phone calls latter I speak to Peter Hunter the Chief Electrician at Salisbury who I had worked with thirty years ago when we were both training at the Redgrave Theatre in Farnham. Yes he had a stock of suitable oil lamps, yes we could borrow them for the period of the show, and no charge, panic over. I pop down to a rehearsal to get a feel for the set (still very embryonic) and watch how the actors are using the stage (still with books and working scenes). Not much but enough to get the creative thought processes going. I spend several evenings at home with a stage plan working out which lights go where, what colours are used to get that soft oil lamp feel and what lighting Q's are needed. At this point I am trying see in my minds eye what the stage will look light under lights and translating that vision into the nuts and bolts of spotlights, gels, cables and dimmers. The stage needs to have two distinct looks, one the warm oil lamp glow with curtains drawn and the world shut out. The other daylight, the curtains wide open with light flooding in the windows. This is always difficult to achieve at BLTC due to the confined spaces. I aim to try and get the feel with a contrast of colours between the scenes using pale straw gels for the oil lamp scenes with backlight from the apparent oil lamp sources, whilst the daylight has a whiter brighter feel with the light apparently coming through the windows. Now comes the hard work in spare evenings and weekends, up and down the ladder, rigging every lamp in the right place on the grid, putting the right gel in, patching each lamp back to the dimmer racks and focussing each light to cover the desired area the stage. In practice all the stage needs to be covered otherwise the cast cannot be seen, in theory this could be achieved by a bank of fluorescent lights over the stage. However, such an approach gives no opportunity to create light and shade, mood or emphasis. So each spotlight is carefully focused to provide direction, variety of colour and the ability to highlight areas of the stage. Final week of rehearsal, all the recent weeks of activity must come together. I retire to the board in the control box at the back of the auditorium and start plotting the show. Luckily the club invested in a memory board (a 24-channel Sirius for those interested) some years ago. As Pat rehearses I set up each lighting effect (known as a state), when it looks about right the state is recorded into a memory along with up and down fade times to become a Cue (Q). Over a couple of evenings all states are roughly plotted, the rehearsals are now spent refining the look by fine tuning the dimmer levels in each state and getting the timings right. 
As the week progresses the look
and feel Pat wants takes shape, we
realise that we can get away with
fairly low levels of light to create the
oil lamp look and feel. Some of the
Q's, such as adjusting the oil lamps
up or down, need to be carefully
plotted and rehearsed with the cast
to make sure they look right. Other
Q's are a more subtle adjustment of
levels to ensure a particular scene
looks right, these are normally slow
one or two minute fades, that hopefully
the audience don't notice, but
which ensure their attention is
drawn to the right area or simply to
create a pleasing stage picture.The fine tuning goes on right up to the Technical Rehearsal on the final Friday before the show starts. Luckily Mathew has agreed to operate the show so I can now relax and enjoy the Dress Rehearsal with a few final notes and details to tidy. After a successful production week comes the final act. Saturday night after curtain down the practical oil lamps must be struck and packed ready for returning to Salisbury Playhouse and other electrical equipment tidied away. Time to relax and reflect, what worked, what could have been better, lessons learnt and filed away for next time. As always the lighting is one part of creating the stage picture along with the set, props, costumes and grouping of actors but invariably it is the lighting that gives that stage picture the sparkle and feel that gives theatre its magic. Why do I do it? Stage Lighting is a challenging mix of the artistic and technical coupled with the buzz of live theatre and working as a team to achieve a coherent stage picture oh and yes the ladder keeps me fit!! So what do all those strange terms at the top of this article mean? Gobos these are metal cut-out shapes which can be put into a spotlight to create patterns in the lighting such a dappled sunlight, I used two in The Heiress to provide a dark blue break up for the night time scenes; Grelcos adaptors used to connect two or three lamps into one socket; Grid scaffolding fixed to the ceiling from which the lamps are hung; Patching connecting over 40 different spotlights used on a show to the 24 dimmers the club uses; Gels thin coloured plastic film used to colour spotlights, hundreds of different colours are available from the deepest reds and blues to the palest tints; Racks dimmers in banks of six two kilowatt circuits, these are hidden away in the balcony Board short for switchboard, in practice the memory control into which all the lighting Q's are programmed. ALASTAIR GRIFFITH This article is courtesy of the Bournemouth Little Theatre News, Editor, Tony Orman. The Bournemouth Little Theatre Club are fortunate to be able to call upon the services of such an accomplished artist. I could not find a photograph of the Heiress stage set on its own, but the photograph here shows Don Gent and Eileen Rawlings in the production. RS 
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