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Show Cameron Harvey, Festival Lighting Consultant v . . ft,' Ni 1 1 jJ V By Janet Weaver "A lighting designer is a composer with light, and once the composition is set and written, a skillful technician can 'play the music' - that Is, run the lights in such a way that effects flow smoothly to create a visual symphony or mood." And with these words Cameron Harvey, Production Manager and Lighting Consultant for the Utah Shakespearean Festival, defines the essential relationships between the lighting designer and technician. He adds that "the lighting designer is an artist who paints with brush strokes in light - each helping to mold a three dimensional picture which controls the focus and attention of an audience as it sets a psychological mood." In most instances this kind of work is so subtle that it is noticed only if it looks inappropriate, thus drawing attention to itself. But in some styles of production certain lighting techniques are used for special effects and can be quite delightful. Cameron suggests that "stage lighting should always be under the auspices of a person with artistic taste and discretion." Mr. Harvey joined the Festival staff as a lighting designer ten years ago when the entire plant was temporary and at the best "make-do." He has returned each year since then and has contributed his imput and ideas to the plans for environmental lighting, production lighting, and the physical theatre as a whole. There has been much progress in the areas of environmental en-vironmental lighting and realization of the physical theatre, but the production lighting system - the lighting for the plays - is sorrowfully lacking despite each year's valiant attempt to circumvent its inadequacies. A modern and flexible production lighting system is the last major piece of technical equipment needed for the Adams Memorial Shakesprea Theatre. The finished system will be very flexible and capable of supporting three repertory productions of Shakespearean plays in the outdoor theatre, or in case of rain, in the auditorium. The system will also be used for the afternoon summer matinee and all year long for events and plays scheduled in the campus auditorium. "It will indeed be a heavily used system, ' explains Mr. Harvey, "but one that will consequently be 'cost effective' since the campus auditorium and Shakespearean theatre can use it without compromising each other. It is the type of stage lighting system these facilities and the audiences that attend them need and deserve." Right now it is necessary for the lighting technicians to run the lights -that is, increase or decrease intensities in-tensities of light onstage without seeing what they are doing. This is called "running blind" as each step of the process is now dictated by the Stage Manager over a headset phone system. "Many concepts are sacrificial to accommodate the primitive conditions that now exist. It's something like playing a piano in your garage and not being able to hear it, where people in your living room do hear it. What do you think are the chances of that music being correctly played? That's why we have to simplify and compromise." No group can do this better in Cameron's opinion than designer Susan Hallman and technicians Bill O'Donnell, Steven Rosen and Ernest Sweet. "We are fortunate to have such talented lighting personnel here this summer. They will achieve, even under physical limitations, an artistically sound visual product. It's a challenge to be sure - but they will do their best to transcend the problems." These are the limitations and frustrations under which the lighting technicians are now working, so one can see why Mr. Harvey's eyes sparkle as he talks about what the lighting will be like when it's finished. Mr. Harvey's wife Mary and their five-year-old daughter Brenda are in Cedar City with him for the season. Mrs. Harvey is an elementary school teacher and in past years has helped in the Box Office during Festival season. The Harveys enjoy traveling together wherever Cameron's work takes them. He is Lighting Designer and Associate Professor of Theatre Design at the University of California, Irvine Cameron Harvey, an artist with lights, spends most of his time in the Theatre "eyebrow," the technical booth high above the audience seating. Photos by Boyd Redington irrr-rrr--- i nii Him mmtimmmimmxmmtmm Hermia and Lysander, portrayed by Nevada Rae Barr and Stanley R. Wells, are one of the couples in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. |