My school is doing Fiddler On The Roof and I'm after some lighting ideas. You guys have any? We've thrown together a few but we're a little short.
Oh, this old question: "My school is doing XXX, can you give me some ideas?" As is the (unwritten) policy of CB, we don't generally design shows for you - but if you're trying achieve a specific
effect and aren't sure how to do it, we'll gladly help you figure it out.
How do you define a "lighting idea"? My "lighting idea" for every show I've ever designed has been something along the lines of "provide lighting which is appropriate to the director's wishes and the script," because that's really all you can start out with. We have no knowledge of your inventory, your
venue, the
vision of your director, the choreography, or anything - and even if we did, without actually being there through production meetings and dress rehearsals, it would be impossible to design a show over the internet.
Stop and think about the show for a moment. Pretend you're back in English class and you have to analyze some old novel for deeper meaning. What kind of themes and subjects does the show hit on? Most shows will have a number of these - Fiddler definitely has a LOT you can
play with. Once you have a general idea of what kind of themes you want to reinforce and hit on (and this will most certainly change slightly as you work through the process), start watching some rehearsals. When I first started designing, I would show up to every single rehearsal, from first read-through to final dress, because it gives you more exposure to the show and gives you time to think really hard about what the director's trying to do. Watch the show - notice any key moments or important emotions? Maybe you could reinforce those with a certain color, or a certain angle, or just a really dim, shadowy
wash for that moment. Try to figure out what emotions the actors are portraying at every second of the show, and then match your lighting to reinforce that (this is a really generalized way of designing, but it should work out pretty well). For me personally, whenever I design a show, I use what some people
call "butter papers" - I go through the script and
plot out what I want to see at every light change in the show, eventually making a mini
plot showing every
instrument for just one
cue. Then combine all of these (I usually have 30 or more - you may have around 5-10) and you have your ideal
plot. Then just start figuring out what you can combine together and what you can cut to fit it in your inventory, and you're done.
Of course, based on your question, I'm guessing this is high school
theatre. Many times, all a director in high school wants to see is some Bastard Amber fronts to light up faces, and other than that they don't really care. Audiences don't go to high school shows to see excellent productions - they go to see their friends up there on
stage, so front light is usually used pretty liberally. Sorry, it looks like I've rambled on a
bit - I tend to do that a lot. If you go through some of these steps and then have trouble figuring out how to achieve a specific look, go right ahead and post it here and you'll get a bunch of suggestions for how to make it look good.