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Lighting Design Student Inspired by New York Stage
No comments · Posted by George in Travel
Jenny was just another theatre major in just another California State University. She was a junior and still hadn’t even drawn the attention of many of her instructors. She was reserved by nature and was one of the few students that was interested in design. Most of the students in her program were actors and a few of them wanted to be directors, but Jenny was one of only two students who actually wanted to pursue a career in lighting design. All of these factors combined left her feeling someone isolated in her own department. She wasn’t left out or ostracized, it just that there was nothing that forced connections between other students and she never quite felt like part of the department.
The summer before her senior year Jenny and her parents spent a week in New York. They were there to spend some time with Jenny’s aunt, uncle and a couple of her cousins who would be in town. They also hoped to attend a show and visit a couple of museums. On their first afternoon in the city Jenny overheard two guests talking to the concierge in the New York boutique resort about a Broadway production they had just seen. What caught Jenny’s attention was the fact that they were talking about the incredible set design. Well, Jenny knew that set and lighting went hand in hand listened in to the conversation.
The production turned out to be a rival of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Jenny talked her parents into going to it with her. Her parents enjoyed the performances and thought it was a quality production, but that’s the most she ever got out of them after a show. Meanwhile Jenny thought the lights, designed by Brian MacDevitt, was incredible. In fact, she was so inspired by it she decided to borrow some of his ideas and incorporated it into her school’s fall production of Our Town. This ended up being Jenny’s moment of glory and her instructors and classmates finally recognized her for her work. It felt good and for once she actually felt like she belonged in the program. She also looked forward to her graduate work, which would be entirely focused on design and she would have more opportunity to work on productions.
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Joe Turner’s Come and Gone · New York boutique resort
