Abstract
Almost all performances make use of lighting, from those in pub theatres to the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic games. Lighting helps shape the audience’s experience and tell stories – it can go un-noticed, or be visually thrilling.
In the court theatres of Renaissance Italy, wood and rope technologies controlled candles and oil lamps to create extraordinary stage transformations to amaze and delight the audiences of the time. Victorian theatres used the latest technologies of limelight and gas flames, while the early 20th century saw sky domes on stage, recreating the natural world, complete with animated cloud projections.
The introduction of electricity allowed far greater control of stage lighting, with experimental systems using cinema organ technology, and the early use of vacuum tubes to regulate power. Today, lighting rigs may have hundreds of individual light sources, and thousands of controllable parameters – brightness, colour, direction, texture, beam shape – all changing continuously throughout the performance.
In this talk, I trace the history of the control of light on stage, and the many technologies that have been used. I look at how lighting is controlled now, and suggest some possible future developments, as performance makers seek to do what they have always done: make the most compelling experience for audiences.
