Antigone!

Here's a picture from 'Antigone' a few weeks ago. That awesome warm light on Antigone's face? That's me standing back 20 feet shining a flashlight at her. It was really neat to get to do this show for a month in daylight, and then at tech realize that all this beautiful work we've done would be invisible if not for light. So our director came up with the idea of the audience carrying flashlights, so they could follow whichever actor or action they so chose, and I walked along behind them keeping my super-flashlight trained on where the scene is going.

Knowing where the scene was going, however, was never clean cut. At the end when Creon walks back to the palace to kill himself, the audience didn't always know to look at him, and feel the weight of seeing him walk away without a word. So that was one moment where I knew where the audience's eye had to be directed, but for more intimate scenes, where the dialogue is flying between two people and a third is standing by interjecting random comments, it was tricky. I would have to judge who to light based on who the audience as a whole were lighting, as well as my own place in the audience.

Generally, 'Antigone' was an awesome show, and getting to follow them around every night taking notes and flashlighting their faces really opened my eyes to how important light is to productions.

Jessica Evans Irvine

Irv