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.