richard pilbrow stage lighting design pdf

Paradoxically, however, McCandless’ techniques form the basis of contemporary pedagogy. While knowledge of McCandless’ method can be useful for lighting design students, it is limiting in both scope and potential for creativity it belongs, as Linda Essig (2007) maintains, in “the lighting history curriculum” (p.66, emphasis in original). Much of contemporary lighting design training can trace its roots to the techniques of Stanley McCandless, whose A Method for Lighting the Stage (1932) was the first formalised method for lighting a production. Isackes confesses that his teaching of theatre design “was largely based on an unquestioned replication of the training I had received as a student there was a major disconnect between my practice as a designer and the theoretical methodology I was advancing in the classroom” (p.41), a realisation that led him to examine his own pedagogical practices. Raynette Halverson Smith notes that “the scenic design process has become frozen, steeped in tradition at its core it has remained unchanged since the practices outlined early in the century by Craig, Appia, and Robert Edmond Jones” (quoted in Isackes, 2008, p.41).

Indeed, this is an observation that seems to be echoed by others in the US, particularly those working in the teaching of theatre design. It is worth noting, first of all, that Zazzali and Klein are both based in the United States, and therefore presumably this is a criticism of the prevailing American pedagogy. They write, “heatre professors seem to merely recycle what they were taught, albeit with new infusions of technology” (p.261). In their article “Toward Revising Undergraduate Theatre Education”, Peter Zazzali and Jeanne Klein (2015) maintain that theatre pedagogy and curricula have remained largely unchanged for over forty years.

The following post is part of a series of responses that are framed by Jonathan Pitches here.

Richard pilbrow stage lighting design pdf