The Right Light: Interviews with Contemporary Lighting Designers [Paperback]

How do theatre lighting designers decide what is 'the right light' for each moment of a production? What informs their choices? Why does the audience respond more strongly when the lighting feels 'right'?

By interviewing nineteen prominent lighting designers and weaving their insights through his own narrative, Nick Moran aims to answer such questions. This book considers practice across different types of theatre, including opera, dance, musicals and drama. Rather than being a technical manual, it allows lighting designers to contribute contrasting and complementary ideas about how to approach lighting design. Moran argues that the best stage lighting is made with emotion, passion and soul, by creative artists willing to take risks.

Includes interviews with: Neil Austin  Lucy Carter  Jon Clark  Natasha Chivers  Paule Constable  James Farncombe  Rick Fisher  Mark Henderson  David Howe  Michael Hulls  Mark Jonathan  Peter Mumford  Ben Ormerod  Bruno Poet  Paul Pyant  Nick Richings  Johanna Town  Hugh Vanstone  Katharine Williams
1. Active Practice.- 2. Instinct as Inspiration.- 3. Tech: A Cauldron of Potential.- 4. Collaborations.- 5. Dramaturgy: Light Telling Stories.- 6. Dance and Abstraction.- 7. In Search of the Right Light.- Glossary.- A Brief Bibliography.

Nick Moran is Senior Lecturer in Lighting Design at Central School of Speech and Drama, London. He is a lighting designer as well as an academic, and his work as lighting designer on English National Opera's production of The Masked Ball formed part of the Collaborators exhibit at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2007/2008. He is the author of Performance Lighting Design.