Live Design’s BLMC Right Around the Corner – I’ll be there, Are You?

The Live Design Broadway Master Classes are right around the corner.  Have you signed up yet?  What are you waiting for?! There are three different Master Classes to attend in New York City at the New York University.

Broadway Lighting Master Classes – May 25 – May 27

Broadway Sound Master Classes – May 21 – May 23

Broadway Projection Master Classes – May 24th

Live Design has graciously offered me a seat in the back of the class to cover the Lighting Master Classes and I am so excited!  This will be my first BLMC and it is expected to be a good one.  As part of the coverage, Live Design arranged for me to talk with Broadway lighting legend, Mr. Jules Fisher.  When I heard that, I about fell over. It is not to often that you have a one on one conversation with such a prestigious member of the industry.

It is a gathering of leading Broadway lighting designers in an open forum to discuss and talk about the conceptual idea’s behind lighting.  Rather then focusing on the new products and technologies on the market, the panel discusses and techniques and approaches and gives students a chance to ask questions and converse with such well known lighting designers like Jules Fisher, Don Holder, Brian MacDevitt, Peggy Eisenhauer, Peter Kaczorowski, Beverly Emmons, Clifton Taylor and Wendall K. Harrington.

Talk about a who’s who in Broadway Lighting Design! The BLMC kick off first thing Tuesday, May 25 with An Approach to Stage Lighting in the morning, Lunch and the Manufacturers Showcase at Noon and then on to LED versus Tungsten with Don Holder and the afternoon with 2009 Tony Award winning lighting designer, Brian MacDevitt and Visual Aids.

I am really pumped up about Tuesday evening, the BLMC students get to attend FELA! and then have a sit down with Robert Wierzel after the show to ask questions. How awesome is that?!

Wednesday brings Music in Lighting: Ebb and Flow lead by Peggy Eisenhauer, the mid day session with Peter Kaczorowski.  After Lunch and the Manufacturers Showcase, Beverly Emmons and Clifton Taylor talk to the class with The Color Lecture. Wednesday wraps up with What Every Lighting Designer Needs to Know about Projections, lead by Wendall K. Harrington.

Are you not convinced?  The Broadway Lighting Master Classes are action packed with tons of information and total lighting geekery!  I am thrilled to death to be attending the BLMC.  I hope to see you there! The BLMC is just a week away and there is still time to sign up.  Visit the registration page on LiveDesign.com. Get more information about all three of the Broadway Master Classes by visiting www.livedesign.com.

Get a Front Row Seat on Broadway Everytime – Theatre For One

If you have been to Times Square in New York City, you may be accustomed to seeing such crazy things as a cowboy in underwear playing a guitar and Criss Angel stuck in an glass cube filled with cement. Some pretty strange and crazy things got on in that city and I love it!

I got a pretty unique email from a good friend, Michael Eddy about a new “theatre” coming to Times Square, Theatre For One. It is a “Unique Performance Space to Offer Private Theatre Experience in Times Square”. Acclaimed Broadway set designer Christine Jones designed and produced a four foot by nine foot portable theatre with one performer playing to one audience member.

What has me interested about this project is the tech spec’s about the “performance space”. From the Press Release:

Theatre for One may be very small, but it is fully operational with computer controlled lights and sound, stage and audience doors and solid sliding “curtain” in a proscenium to start and end the performances.  A stage manager runs the show while a house manager guides the guests into the red velvet interior which includes an actual peep booth seat.

Theatre For One opens it door on May 14, 2010 and goes to May 23, 2010 in Times Square. There are no tickets, Theatre For One is available to anyone on a first-come, first-served basis.  I just wish that the show would be extended by a couple of days.  It closes the day before I head up to New York for the BLMC! :( you can follow all of the happenings of Theatre For One on their web site, www.theatreforone.com or on their twitter feed, @TheatreForOne.

Thanks Michael!

Tharon Musser Passed Away

We learned early this morning via FaceBook that the legendary lighting designer Tharon Musser has pass away at the age of 84. “After a long illness, Tharon passed away comfortably in the company of her long-time partner Marilyn Rennagel,” reports Steve Terry, who worked with Tharon on the Tony Award-winning production of A Chorus Line in 1975. “For those of us that knew Tharon, this is not unexpected news, but still very, very hard to hear.”

Musser was an Ebby and Tony award winning lighting designer who worked on over 150 Broadway shows during the course of her career. Tharon is best known for her groundbreaking work on the Broadway musicals Dreamgirls in 1982 and A Chorus Line in 1975. A Chorus Line was the first Broadway production to utilize a completely computerized lighting console instead of the manually operated “piano boards”. She is considered one of the pioneers iin the field of lighting design.