Much Ado About Nothing — lighting design
Designed the lighting plot for a fall student production of Much Ado About Nothing — 60-instrument rig, ETC Eos console, two acts in one set with day/night transitions.
Took the lighting design lead on a fall student production. Wanted the rig to feel like a single sun moving across the stage rather than a series of cues — so the design leaned hard on warm/cool angle pairs and slow time-of-day washes rather than punchy specials.
What worked
- Two-color top/back wash gave the day → twilight → night arc without the audience consciously noticing it shift.
- Pre-set focusing in two short calls saved a full evening of tech.
- Deck-level practicals (lanterns) tied the period feel to the lighting, which usually doesn’t survive fluorescent rehearsal rooms.
What I’d change
- Front fill was undersaturated; should have rented more profiles.
- Cue stack ended up at 142 — could have been 80 with better follow-on logic.
A useful project for understanding how lighting design is mostly time management and conversations, not equipment.