This book is compiled from a series of interviews by the author with various software engineers specialising in entertainment lighting products. Their conversations discuss the ideas and developments behind many of our most well-known controls, dimmers, moving lights and other gadgetry necessary for modern performance lighting; as well as a look into the personalities of these pioneers.
Contributors to this book include: Gordon Pearlman (Kleigl Performer, Morpheus Light Commander, Horizon), David Cunningham (Light Palette, CD80, Sensor and also Source Four luminaires), John McKernon (Lightwright), Anne Valentino (Obsession, Virtuoso), Tom Thorne (Whole Hog), Mark Hunt (Icon M, Mbox), Tom Grimes (HES Controllers, RDM Protocol), Eric Cornwell (Virtual Light Lab, Express-Track), Chris Toulmin (Modelbox) and Wayne Howell (Lamp-Tramp, Grand Master Flash, Micrscope, Art-Net, etc).
Let There be Light will appeal to anyone interested in stage lighting product development over the last 30 years.

About the Author(s):

Robert Bell heads Shock Lighting Limited, a lighting design and software consulting firm based near Toronto. Currently he is working with Horizon Control Inc. and Entertainment Technology (a Genlyte Company) building the Marquee lighting console. Robert is best known in the entertainment industry as the 'Father of WYSIWYG', and a founder of CAST Lighting Limited, the manufacturers of the de facto standard in lighting CAD and visualisation software. As the legendary designer and author of Stage Lighting Design Richard Pilbrow put it: "Robert Bell is an extraordinary entrepreneur whose creation of WYSIWYG has had a revolutionary impact upon the world of entertainment lighting. His contribution to the field marks him as one of the most innovative figures in our industry of the last decade!"

Memorable projects Robert has worked on include The International Spy
Museum in Washington DC, Prudential Financial sign in Times Square, Toys R Us in Times Square, Ringo Starr All Star Band '01 Tour, Starlight Express in the West End, Harry S Truman Presidential Library, the Canadian Juno Awards six years running) and the Opening Ceremonies for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

Robert is a member of ESTA's Control Protocol's Working Group and the
Electrical Skills Working Group and co-chairs the Automated Lighting Task Group
and works with the ACN Task Group. Robert has written for Lighting Dimensions,
Entertainment Design and Lighting and Sound International magazines.

Contents by chapter:

FOREWORD - God Said: "Let There be Light" by Richard Pilbrow; PROLOGUE - Thin Ice; INTRODUCTION; 1 WHERE WE CAME FROM - The Four Yorkshiremen; 2 WYSIWYG SEEDS; 3 GORDON PEARLMAN; 4 DAVID CUNNINGHAM; 5 JOHN M C KERNON; 6 ANNE VALENTINO; 7 TOM THORNE; 181; 8 MARK HUNT; 9 TOM GRIMES; 10 ERIC CORNWELL; 11 CHRIS TOULMIN; 12 WAYNE HOWELL; 13 WHERE WE'RE GOING - with Richard Lawrence and Philip Nye; INDEX

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This is a record of five of the best years of my life. Years so good that the only downside is the pangs of guilt at enjoying such contentment in a world full of misery induced by greed, envy and imposed ideologies. Fortunately my DNA is high on luck, optimism and blessing counting. Francis Reid

About the Author(s):

Francis Reid is a veteran lighting designer, lecturer and writer. After reading science at Edinburgh University, he spent five years in stage and production management including Rep Drama, Touring Opera, Aldeburgh Festival and Edinburgh Fringe.
He was lighting director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera throughout the sixties and subsequently designed lighting for over 300 productions including several in Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels, and over 30 in London (musicals such as Man of La Mancha, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Grease, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Anne of Green Gables; plays such as Sleuth, Move Over Mrs Markham, Vieux Cane, Soldiers, Flint, The Happy Apple, Anyone For Denis?) Also many operas and over 60 pantomimes.
From 1979 to 1981 he was director of the Theatre Royal in Bury St. Edmunds, and from 1982 to 1987 head of theatre design at London's Central School of Art & Design. He has served on the Drama and Dance Advisory Committee of The British Council and the Boards of Norwich Puppet Theatre, Norwich Playhouse, Extemporary Dance Theatre and Festival City Theatres Trust.
He taught Lighting Design at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1965 to 1983 and at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal from 1974 to 2006.
Francis Reid is author of The Stage Lighting Handbook, now in its 6th edition and translated into Spanish and Swedish. Other titles include The Staging Handbook (also on Kindle), Theatre Administration (also in Spanish), Designing For The Theatre, Stages For Tomorrow, Theatre Space, The ABC of Stage Technology, The ABC of Stage Lighting, Lighting The Stage, The ABC of Theatre Jargon, Hearing the Light, Yesterday's Lights, Fading Light, Theatric Tourist, and Discovering Stage Lighting (also in French and on Kindle). He provided the Theatre Buildings entry in Cambridge Guide to World Theatre. A contributor to The Stage and Architect's Journal, he was editor of TABS (1974-1977) and wrote for each of the 56 issues of CUE (1979-1988). He is a Fellow and Doctor of Drama (honoris causa) of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama and a Fellow of Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Association of Lighting Designers and ABTT.

Contents by chapter:

Prologue

2005
October; Déjà Vu; New habits die hard; Kalami to Kalami; Eu; Dubrovnik; Holiday rituals; Legends or myths?; Home again; Teaching and learning; November 2005; Programme note; Handel in Bonn; Handel in Amsterdam; Cinders; Quoting Handel; Another Alcina; They never closed; December 2005; Examining externally; A pair of pantos; Back to school; Crypt or card; Bach Christmas; Remembering 2005…

2006
January; … Anticipating 2006; Coram Boy; Round table RADA; Email from Munich; Mozart 250; OSM and Camerata; February 2006; Swan Lake; Herrenwechte live; MarthaStricken; Act Two by candlelight; Life cycle; March 2006; Oratorio staged …; … and oratorio sung; Booksmithing; April 2006; Shanghaied Redgraves; Solomon; Birthday 'lunch'; Bibiena Mozart; Reggio Emilia; Piacenza Barber; May 2006; Figaro north; Great Hospital; Restoring Haydn; Flying blues; Sons of Bach; Critical speculation; Pleasurable duty; Tolomeo; Mozartburg; Viva! Mozart; Watery jokes; Stone theatre; Garden centre opera; Opera as written; Zauberflötenhäuschen; June 2006; Opera hooligan; Mass reconstruction; Handel goes Indian; Schinkel; Film Museum; The road to Figaro; Spin filmer; Baroque indoors and out; Green LX; Dreaming the plot; Händel Haus; Purcell power; A mostly magical Flute; Mass in semi-context; Old words in new clothes; July 2006;
Airport opera; Dramatick opera danced; Kalami; Birthday Jo; Birthday anticlimax; Son of John; Education; August 2006; Castrati; Handel at Wiltons; An actress rediscovered; Tidal life; September 2006; PLASA; Baroque Bayreuth; Wagner's wedge; Composer Museums; DeDEPA at CRASSH; October 2006; Third Programme; Portraying the living; Neukollner Orlando; Theaterstadt Meiningen; Flute logical…; … and Flutemagical; Weill and Bauhaus; November 2006; A pair of Brechts; Le Musical de Broadway Live; Ballet at Versailles; A Screw relentlessly turned; Cosi; December; Iraq; The King's and I; Centenary Cinders; Morning after; Fellow; Christmas Eve

2007
January – February; Limbo; March 2007; Spring awakening; Elixir; Agrippina; Another Agrippina; Mozart trilogy; How green is war?; Church windows; Handel goes Mughal; April 2007; Hard hat Bury; Golden 50; A Maldon reprise; Claviorgan; Biblical jurisprudence; May 2007; Scotland in Mayfair; Concert menus; Purcell at the circus; Red Priest Pirates; Kalami the Eighth; Reaching heavenwards; Secular orthodoxy; An operatic storm; What do you doin Kalami?; June 2007; Frankfurt Ariodante; Halle Ariodante; Busy day; Eisenach; Jerwood; ABTT; Long haul tourist; A Consevatoire Don; Enlightened 21st; July 2007; Wiltons; Live to please who?; Johnson; Dancing Mozart; Teatre Principal, Mao; Operatic organ; Teatre des Born, Cuitadella; OctoJo; August 2007; Edinburgh sixty; Independence sixty; John Murray; Madrigals; Monte(Cole)verdi; Machines and cornetts; Walking to Lübeck; Nachtmusique; September 2007; Bury restored; Playing the veteran; Broadsmen ashore; October 2007; Historic theatric tourism; King Arthurat the court of the morris dancers; Teseo; November 2007; Norwich refurb; Speaker's gothic; Drama devised; Elixir; Don't mention it; Cabaret; St Pancras Cathedral; Opera Lille; December 2007; Drury Lane; The lighting dinner; Trench Flute; Santa Semele

2008
January; Called by a cull; John Rich; February 2008; Intelligent seapersons; Malibran; Auditorio para diva; Time and Tide; Hunsruck; Saar oper; March 2008; Resurrection in Karlsruhe; Wuppertal; Handel and carbon; Joshua; Theseus; Klangblühen; Flavius Bertaridus; Music for the table; Abschlusskonzert; Put out to rust; Volcano personified; April 2008; Stage box; Seventy seven; Stained light; Overal theater (aka Le Théâtre de la vie and Theatre Here, There and Everywhere); Furore; Traumatic tag; Atalanta abbandonata; Lost and found; May 2008; Brighton revisited; … and then Laughton; Moliere & Purcell in the ring; Nae monster!; Scenic railway; Baroque at 8.01; Georgian house; Sixty years on; June 2008; Happy feet; Thought for today; Delirio Amoroso; Belshazzar; Easter in June; Samson; Dido; OAE; Fludde Cominge; July 2008; Bus pass to the Stalham; … and to Beccles; August 2008; Prom; SIBMAS; Powerpoint; Britania Panopticon; September 2008; Richmond; STR; Afterpiece; Where else?; Mouse lunch; "αντίο" – μέχρι το επόμενο έτος; October 2008; Unterwelt in Lüneburg; Second opinion; Toybox Flute;
Handelian teddies; Classics as was; Georgian pop stars; Diva plays a diva; Bibliothèque Nationale; Le petite Théâtre de la Reine; Semele; November 2008;
Remembering Osbert; What passion cannot music raise, and quell?; Gingerbread updated; Stands panto were it did?; The Wizard of Never Woz; Hogmanay

2009
January; Seeing in the New Year; Eyes and teeth; Tomography; Fang tech; Apprehension fades; February 2009; Mannheim theater sammlung; Fascinating stage; Handel & Vivaldi; Mit vanilla eis; Candle Handel; Rewarding failure; March 2009; Crossover on Naxos; Theatre museum in retreat; Alexanderthe Rugby Great;
April 2009; Handel 250; Late seventies; Understage at The Lane; May 2009; Colonial China; APA 25; Curtains?; King Arthur and the bellhops of the round spiegeltent ; Pursuing Craig; Where have all the platelets gone?; Haydn day; June 2009; Papa Haydn; Tienanmen; EU Handel; Period passion; Floridante; Bachfest; July 2009; Never say last?; A pint in Balloch; Swithin, patron saint of climate change; Breathing; August 2009; Enlightenment with St Andrew & St George; As we forgive them that trespass against us; Admeto, re di Tessaglia; Mendelssohn updates Handel; Admeto again; September 2009; Is he still around?!; John Barnes; October 2009; Origins; Douglas Craig; November 2009; The Pitmen Painters; The Merry Wives of Wartime Windsor; Handelfest; December 2009; Tate Modern; Messiahstaged; Farewell to the Noughties

2010
January 2010; A new decade; Missing?; An Elixir from the sixties; Rabbie Burns global warming warning; Eighteenth century flatpack; February 2010; A mirror on society; Knackered; Orlando Furioso; Passione cosi dolore;
Milton and Händel; Handel's Scotland; Debrief; March 2010; Holistic approach to fading oldies; Are you alright?; Testing, testing, testing; Vanishing kilos; Diagnosis; Crossfade to reality?; April 2010; Maestro Pasquale; Surprise accolade; Future; A theatric habit; Latent genes?; May 2010; Election; A sad Handelian; Look back; Sacrificium; Jerusalem; The Seasons; Practical design; King's Place; An Elysian Grove in Dunstable; June 2010; Slowish brain; A Parabola for Cheltenham Ladies;
Anticipating Wexford; Wexford; and the winner is…; ABTT; Nineteenth Century Theatreland; Handel House; Afternoon on the Yare; July 2010; Green light; The day we didn't go to Rothesay, oh; The Bonny Banks; Fading Doctor; The Ides are on St Swithun's Day; Gala 60; A baroque sandwich; Hidden heritage; Coffee concert; August 2010; Diplomatic Art; Edinburgh Festival; Impressionist gardens; Play on;
Montezuma – a director's revenge; Fiesta Criolla; Canadian honour; Fading ticker;
September 2010; Multitasking arts management; WISE Tea Ladies; Banqueting Light; Presenting the prize; Craig at the V&A; Study day at the V&A; A Baroque queen; Alte Oper; October 2010; Another baroque queen

Epilogue

Index

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Although Francis Reid's work in theatre has been visual rather than verbal, writing has provided crucial support. Putting words on paper has been the way in which he organised and clarified his thoughts. And in his self-confessed absence of drawing skills, writing has helped him find words to communicate his visual thinking in discussions with the rest of the creative team.
As a by-product, this process of searching for the right words to help formulate and analyse ideas has resulted in half-a-century of articles in theatre journals. Cue 80 is an anthology of these articles and is released in celebration of Francis' 80th birthday.

About the Author(s):

Francis Reid is a veteran lighting designer, lecturer and writer. After reading science at Edinburgh University, he spent five years in stage and production management including Rep Drama, Touring Opera, Aldeburgh Festival and Edinburgh Fringe.
He was lighting director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera throughout the sixties and subsequently designed lighting for over 300 productions including several in Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels, and over 30 in London (musicals such as Man of La Mancha, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Grease, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Anne of Green Gables; plays such as Sleuth, Move Over Mrs Markham, Vieux Cane, Soldiers, Flint, The Happy Apple, Anyone For Denis?) Also many operas and over 60 pantomimes.
From 1979 to 1981 he was director of the Theatre Royal in Bury St. Edmunds, and from 1982 to 1987 head of theatre design at London's Central School of Art & Design. He has served on the Drama and Dance Advisory Committee of The British Council and the Boards of Norwich Puppet Theatre, Norwich Playhouse, Extemporary Dance Theatre and Festival City Theatres Trust.
He taught Lighting Design at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1965 to 1983 and at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal from 1974 to 2006.
Francis Reid is author of The Stage Lighting Handbook, now in its 6th edition and translated into Spanish and Swedish. Other titles include The Staging Handbook (also on Kindle), Theatre Administration (also in Spanish), Designing For The Theatre, Stages For Tomorrow, Theatre Space, The ABC of Stage Technology, The ABC of Stage Lighting, Lighting The Stage, The ABC of Theatre Jargon, Hearing the Light, Yesterday's Lights, Fading Light, Theatric Tourist, Carry On Fading and Discovering Stage Lighting (also in French and on Kindle). He provided the Theatre Buildings entry in Cambridge Guide to World Theatre. A contributor to The Stage and Architect's Journal, he was editor of TABS (1974-1977) and wrote for each of the 56 issues of CUE (1979-1988). He is a Fellow and Doctor of Drama (honoris causa) of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and a Fellow of Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Association of Lighting Designers and ABTT.

Contents by chapter:

Prologue

The Fifties; Gunther Rennert – rebuilder of Hamburg Opera; Music and the Straight Play; Make programmes more attractive; Catalysts of change – a look back from the nineties

The Sixties; Trends in Mechanical Staging; Catalysts of change – a look back from the nineties

The Seventies; Theatre on Campus; Bilingual Theatre School in Montreal; PQ75; Broadway in 1977; Token Male; Thunder Run; Theater de Brakke Grond; Taking the waters; Musical boots; Silent knights; A waste of time; Broadway; The sound of safety; Why (A)symmetric?; McBean in retrospect; In the Pantheon; Propman; Weill and Lenya; Alive and well and living down under; Operatic storm; Tabman Talking; Lighting Eclipsed; Living for pleasure; Tabman's last Cue

The Eighties; Creating visual magic; Audience power; New York musicals; Management by the book; Pantomime, Profits and Policemen; A Stage Hamburger; (In)significant Change?; Video or Television?; Never on a Sunday?; Art, Life and Leisure; Can we afford public accountability?; Crying out for visual satisfaction; Scenic encumbrance; Water music; Administrative design; A Phoenix Infrequent; How much technology? – Take your Pick!; Book review; Cue congratulates the Arts Investment Council; Beckmesser, MA; Suffer for the Arts; Golden Glyndebourne; Another Person Plingular; Plinge goes a-haunting; Stage scores a century; B's memorial; Lyric devalued; A Plinge rejected; Tickets at TKSTS; Burlesque Babies; The Professor; Bottled Tabs; Kissing art; Repetition Parisien; Omnipotent tomatoes; The Success dream; Figaro evaluated; Box-office bulletins; Defining the indefinable; Fur Coats and Allen; Punditorial graffitti; Architact; Dressing the boxes; Plays not so many parts; Parting thought; Logos; Opera reformed; Waiting in Attica – a postcard from Walter Plinge

The Nineties; Panto – Britain's uniquely indigenous theatre form; Intervention of market forces – a post-war dream turned sour; The price of keeping sponsors happy; Glyndebourne: Obituary for an opera house; Please put your daughters on our stage, Mrs Worthington; Montreal Theatre School; Testing Stage Managers; Talking research in Moscow; Moving the rope; Seasonal labourers

The Noughties; The Cominge of the Fludde; Osbert Lancaster retrospective; Look back at panto; Bury restored; 25 Years of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts

Into The Nexties; Response to eightieth birthday toast

Afterpiece; Starting School; War; Peace; University; National Service

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Old age is much more fun than I expected.
It would be easy to focus on such downsides as stiffening sinews and dodgy memory. Or the pills popped to regulate blood pressure and the reliance upon chiropody. (I have heard no better definition of advancing years than bending down to tie your shoelaces and wondering 'Is there anything else I should be doing while I'm down here'.)
Perhaps the greatest joy of geriatrica is that there are few deadlines. If I don't get around to doing it today, there's always tomorrow. And if there is no tomorrow? Whatever the future, I hope to be granted a few more healthy years. There is still so much to do.
Much more than I can ever hope to see, hear or afford. And I remain curious about the future. I would really like to know what happens next.
I regret that I have never succeeded in keeping a proper diary beyond the very first few days in January.
However, with 2004-2005 the year in which I completed 50 years in the theatre, it was now or never. So I wrote down the year as it happened. Inevitably I am rather
uncertain about sharing it. Who could possibly be interested in the travels and thoughts of a lighting designer enjoying his slow fade? On the other hand, there seemed to be a favourable response to similar material in the columns that Tabman and Walter Plinge contributed to Tabs and Cue.
Inevitably this is a feel-good book. Inevitable, because at age 70 I resolved that henceforth I would allow myself a lifestyle based on the pursuit of hedonism. No more reading, listening or viewing because I ought to – only because I wanted to. So this Journal records experiences that were chosen to give me pleasure.

About the Author(s):

Francis Reid is a veteran freelance lighting designer and lecturer, writer and advisor
on theatre design and technology. After reading science and psychology at Edinburgh
University, he spent five years in stage and production management including Rep, Drama, Touring Opera, Aldeburgh Festival and Edinburgh Fringe.

He was lighting director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera throughout the decade of the sixties and subsequently responsible for the lighting design of over 300 productions including several in Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels, and over 30 in London (musicals such as Man of La Mancha, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Grease, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Anne of Green Gables; plays such as Sleuth, Move Over Mrs Markham, Vieux Carre, Soldiers, Flint, The Happy Apple, Anyone For Denis?– also many operas and over 60 pantomimes).

From 1979 to 1981 he was director of the Theatre Royal in Bury St.Edmunds, and from 1982 to 1987 head of theatre design at London's Central School of Art & Design. He has served on the boards of Norwich Puppet Theatre, Norwich Playhouse, Extemporary Dance Theatre, and Festival City Theatres Trust.

He taught Lighting Design at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1965 until 1983 and has been a regular visiting lecturer at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal since 1974.

Francis Reid is the author of The Stage Lighting Handbook, now in its 6th edition and translated into Spanish and Swedish. Other titles include The Staging Handbook ,Theatre
Administration (also in Spanish), Designing For The Theatre, Stages For Tomorrow, The ABC of Stage Technology, The ABC of Stage Lighting, Lighting The Stage, The ABC of Theatre Jargon, Hearing the Light, Yesterday's Lights, Fading Light, Theatre Space and Discovering Stage Lighting (also in French).

He Provided the Theatre Buildings entry in Cambridge Guide to World Theatre and contributed to Making Space for Theatre. He was editor of TABS (1974-1977), wrote for each of the 56 issues of CUE (1979-1988) and reviewed many new theatres for the Architect's Journal.

He is a Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama.

Contents by chapter:

ON GROWING OLD

MAY 2004: Kalami; Corfu Town; Agni; Paleokastritsa; Evening Agni; Kefalonia; Koloura

JUNE: Cesky Krumlov; Baroque Theatre; Candles; Halle; Bad Lauchstadt; Händel Supper; Halle Musik; Another Handelian Day; More Festival Opera; The Ides of June; ABTT; To Japan; Yokohama; World Lighting Fair; A Lazy Day; Tokyo; More Tokyo; Homeward Bound

JULY: Hannover; Osnabrück; Wolfenbüttel; Warsaw; 18th Century Restored; Ides of July; Mozart; Edinburgh; RADA; Iraq; Osiris

AUGUST: Somerleyton; Poetic Tensions; Jimi Handel meets G. F. Hendrix; Oulton Broad; Orthoptics; Edinburgh Festival; Painters; Prestonpans; Close Archaeology; Back to School; Definitive Bruckner; Musselburgh; Ballet Matinee; Saucing the Haggis; Catalan Drips; Late Night Punting; Letter in the East Anglian Daily Times

SEPTEMBER: Bury St Edmunds; Diplomatic Dining; In the Train; PLASA; Decibels; Stage Beauty; Delivering Yesterday's Lights; A Light Apology;

OCTOBER: De-Lovely; Lovely Concert – Pity About the Hall; Chewing; To Turkey; Marmaris; Içmeler; Holiday Pleasures; Holiday Reads; Hierapolis; Ephesus; Home; Fairies; Drilling Outsourced; Proofs;

NOVEMBER: Period Dressing; Simple Beliefs; Glyndebourne at Norwich; Flutes remembered; The Nation served; Remembrance; Opera Comique Parisienne; Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais; Early Mozart; Amsterdam Theater Museum; Stadsschouwburg; Alliance Nouveau; Liaisons Danced; Serving the Nation; Shared Identity; The Times

DECEMBER: Gewandhaus Messias; Leipzig Music; Leipzig Oper; Nikolaikirche; Stasi Museum; Thomaskirche; Chemnitz; Fifty Years On; RADA & Crypt; First Opening; Belshazzar; Lighting Dinner; McPanto; Christmas Eve; Christmas Day; Boxing Soup; Media; Tsunami; Hogmanay

JANUARY 2005: New Year's Day; January Second; Phantom Hokum; Pompeii Recreated; Mont Royal; Light and Dance; Dancing in the Light; Fast Track Architecture; Musical Pleasures; Talking and Eating; Feelgood Homeward

FEBRUARY: Yesterday's Lights; Piano Concerti; And on Thursday's I Read The Stage; Merchant Ivory; Flybe Freebie; Yesterday's man; Mozart Triumphant; Lichtgestaltung; Die Unzauberflöte; Typos; Sesimbra; Setúbal & Évora; Teatro Nacional de São Carlos; Dionisio, Re di Portogallo

MARCH: To Hong Kong; Chep Lap Kok; Déjà vu; Ageing China Hand; HKTTS; Still the night? Requiem; West Kowloon Cultural District; Ritual Dining; Dancing the Opera; Ezio; Edinburgh; It's Behind You! RSAMD; Osbert Recalled; Drama Senza Giocoso

APRIL: Open Borders; Trousers; More Trousers; Hummel; Opera; Theatre – A Passion, a Body, a Voice; Alcina; Two Years to Gold; Museo Teatrale Alla Scala; Rinaldo; Birthday; Serenissima; Goldoni; Fenice III; Pia de Tolomei; da Vinci Machines

MAY: Theatre Museum; Handel House; Handel Church; VE-day 60 Years On; Lunch Music; Multi-Channel Motet; Election; Democracy? Escape; Kalami Again; McHaggis; Oracle; Powerless; Butrint; Ides anniversary

INDEX

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Francis Reid's highly enjoyable memoir Hearing the Light delves deeply into the theatricality of the industry. The author's almost fanatical interest in opera, his formative period as lighting designer at Glyndebourne and his experiences as a theatre administrator, writer and teacher make for a broad and unique background and an equally wide-ranging story of the technical side of theatre across the second half of the twentieth century. At the core of the book is the story of the extensive post-1950 development in stage lighting as an art form supported by new technologies.
Hearing the Light is not just the story of one man's career; it is also packed full of stories and anecdotes familiar to anyone having worked in theatre, and it will certainly bring more than a few knowing chuckles to the reader. Francis Reid has an excellent archive, and the book includes many colour reproductions of original production playbills dating back to the '60s and '70s as well as production photos and images of the author at work. His story includes a sabbatical from the theatre whilst enjoying a boating break on the Norfolk Broads, although Francis the author was still at work and wrote a piece for Practical Boat Owner on low cost 'waste' pumps!
The second in ETP's biographical series, Hearing the Light is a fine accompaniment to Fred Bentham's Sixty Years of Light Work. Indeed there are many similarities as both authors have shared some similar experiences, including product development work for Strand Lighting.
This book is not a teaching tool in the way that Reid's Stage Lighting Handbook and similar titles are, although the reader will certainly pick up some useful tips; it is a very enjoyable adventure through the technological advances of theatre and gives an insight into the life of a dedicated 'theatric tourist'.

About the Author(s):

Francis Reid is a veteran freelance lighting designer and lecturer, writer and advisor on theatre design and technology. After reading science and psychology at Edinburgh University, he spent five years in stage and production management including Rep, Drama, Touring Opera, Aldeburgh Festival and Edinburgh Fringe.

He was lighting director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera throughout the decade of the sixties and subsequently responsible for the lighting design of over 300 productions including several in Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels, and over 30 in London (musicals such as Man of La Mancha, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Grease, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Anne of Green Gables; plays such as Sleuth, Move Over Mrs Markham, Vieux Carre, Soldiers, Flint, The Happy Apple, Anyone For Denis?– also many operas and over 60 pantomimes).

From 1979 to 1981 he was director of the Theatre Royal in Bury St.Edmunds, and from 1982 to 1987 head of theatre design at London's Central School of Art & Design. He has served on the boards of Norwich Puppet Theatre, Norwich Playhouse, Extemporary Dance Theatre, and Festival City Theatres Trust.

He taught Lighting Design at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1965 until 1983 and has been a regular visiting lecturer at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal since 1974.

Francis Reid is the author of The Stage Lighting Handbook, now in its 6th edition and translated into Spanish and Swedish. Other titles include The Staging Handbook ,Theatre
Administration (also in Spanish), Designing For The Theatre, Stages For Tomorrow, The ABC of Stage Technology, The ABC of Stage Lighting, Lighting The Stage, The ABC of Theatre Jargon, Hearing the Light, Yesterday's Lights, Fading Light, Theatre Space and Discovering Stage Lighting (also in French).

He Provided the Theatre Buildings entry in Cambridge Guide to World Theatre and contributed to Making Space for Theatre. He was editor of TABS (1974-1977), wrote for each of the 56 issues of CUE (1979-1988) and reviewed many new theatres for the Architect's Journal.

He is a Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama.

Contents by chapter:

PROLOGUE; 1 GETTING HOOKED; GETTING STARTED; 3 GETTING ESTABLISHED; 4 GLYNDEBOURNE; 5 OPERATICS; 6 PLAYS AND MUSICALS; 7 PANTOMIME; 8 WEST END; 9 A BOATING INTERLUDE; 10 BACK IN THE WEST END; 11 STRAND; 12 WRITING; 13 BURY ST EDMUNDS; 14 EDUCATING; 15 THEATRIC TOURIST; 16 ASSOCIATIONS, BOARDS, COMMITTEES, PANELS AND UNIONS; AFTERPIECE; APPENDIX 1: GLOSSARY; APPENDIX 2: TECHNICAL NOTES; APPENDIX 3: FEES; CHRONOLOGY; BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Taking advantage of the flexibility and choices offered by the advent of digital printing techniques, and the ability to 'print-on-demand', Entertainment Technology Press decided from the day of its establishment to include historical and biographical titles within its various book series. Potentially shorter 'runs' and reprints of important works could be included. It is a privilege for Entertainment Technology Press to include Fred Bentham's Sixty Years of Light Work as the first in our Biographical Series.
When it was suggested to Andy Collier, who was largely responsible for nursing the original book through to its publication by Strand Lighting, that we attempt to put the title 'back into print', he was enthusiastic about the idea. Once again he has assisted the project along its path with his usual patience, and ETP thanks him and the small and esteemed group who have in various ways enabled us to put Fred's work back into print: Bob Anderson, Roger Fox, Brian Legge, Francis Reid and Peter Rogers.
It is also a pleasure to acknowledge the agreement of Fred himself. He knew, shortly before his death in May this year, that this new edition was about to go to print. Also thanks to his widow Ilse and sons Freddy and Jeremy who gave the project their blessing.
The idea of including the complete Strand Catalogue of 1936 as an Appendix was down to the series editor John Offord, and it is why you paid more pounds for your book! The intention is that it will be of interest to many readers, and in particular, when future students of entertainment technology grasp its importance, this decision will be vindicated.

Contents by chapter:

INTRODUCTION

1 CROWNHILL ROAD – St Matthew, St Paul and Aeschylus 1911-29:
Family Background - Them & Us - The Studio, work could be fun - Church – Holy Orders? - Cinema & Theatre - Transport & walking - School & sport – OTC as escape - Salisbury Plain - Hayling Island - St Paul's school - Model Theatre - Amateur theatre - Stage Lighting wins.

2 KINGSWAY – Picture Palaces 1929-32:
First job problem? - GEC Fittings D.O. - IES and ELMA - Basil Davis & TCE dept. - Age of Cinema-theatre building - the Silent films - colour-changing everywhere -
the Talkies - Monarch of Bermuda, first invention - A Vacancy at Strand Electric.

3 FLORAL STREET – Stage Lighting 1932-35:
Strand as a private company - Life in the 'Showroom' - the Seecol theatre - Cold Comfort Farm? - Cochran opens our dem-theatre - Sound - that Seecol stage! – Optical experiments - Tight Financing - Profile spots - Acting-areas & Pagents - Robert Nesbitt - The Catalogue.

4 MORE FLORAL STREET – Grand Master v. Light Console 1932-36:
Halifax & Stratford - Dimmers - Pyramid Sale's understudy - Prince's Bristol soloist - Regal Edmonton - Everything Electrical? - Eton's ex-school master - German is best - Teutonic breakdown - Sir Thomas & Covent Garden - Kein Grün, Kein Rot - The Ring - "certain days" - 'night of the nuclear test' - It Works! – Compton takes charge - Why not Strowger? – Questors Ealing "Tin Hut" - Basil Dean & GBS.

5 KING STREET – Lighting For Entertainment 1936-39:
Public Company - New directors - tied by Light Console - Colour Music recitals the AWG plus GBS - sudden death of Father - Decorative Colour Worker - Bernard,Who? - Pit passes - Scenery for Colour Music - finding new premises - Temple to Colour Music – the Glasgow Exhibition - Big problems in GPO pavilion & up to North Cascade - British Empire ditched at Paris Expo - Voici les Amplies - Cafe Cognac - Trouble brewing abroad & inside - Wembley Hospital - Ally Pally 405-line
TV - LAW and The Catalogue - Delicolor.

6 SAN CARLOS & KING EDWARDVII – Lisbon to Midhurst via Crail
1940-47:
The Studio & Philip - 'B' & Stanley as buffers – Charlie Rhubarb - Surgical interference - No Ideal Home - Mind You write that down - Sanatorium regime -
Telescope & Flags - What about the Piano - Paris & Sud Express - Lisbon & Opera House - Notre WC - flop, bounce and fado - Blitz v Piano - No room in Plane - His
Excellency's Request - Night sweats – Contemporary report - Vital relat missing - First Night dangers – Flight Simulator? - King St.Temple bombed - Ham house - TAT
at Crail - Gangway at Palladium - "Mr. Bentham" resounds - Paradise Garden solo - That walk - Mr Bentham retreats, Papworth or 10 years?

7 KING STREET AGAIN – Festival & Export 1948-64:
Electronics - New Recruits - Home again - that Half Theatre - rescue by worms - New Demo-theatre - Drury Lane, Stoll & Coliseum - Festival Hall - acoustics v. lights - choppers as dimmers - Caracas - Theatre Polski - Three men in a VW - Germany calling - My Fair Lady Compton takes charge - Why not Strowger? - Questors
Ealing "Tin Hut" - Basil Dean & GBS.

8 WEMBLEY, GOLDEN SQUARE & RIVERSIDE – Television Takes Off! 1954-64:
Ally Pally - The Abbey - HRH says "No" - Earl's Court - TV Live - IEE papers - System A or B? - German name, why? - change for change's sake - Riverside - white-bread shock - New York - freeze food - Radio City Music Hall - Severence Hall - Midnight crumpet-test - "Do you crimp?" - Contests with Unions - Electronic trouble - A Girl in Riverside! Patching - Maintenance.

9 SOUTH STREET – Covent Garden to Brentford 1964-73:
The Visit - Rank effect - 100th TABS - lectures - "the real stuff" - Rank Executives - Monastic days - Minispots - Oil Tycoon Threat - Board meetings - the trouble was
me - Golden Jubilee - unexpected ally - Memory Control with rotten memory - Ottowa - Q-File competion - takeover battles - PR & TL dept. - Royal Lancaster - Rocker
& Software success - Blue Room catering - Kippers & Stratford.

10 SHAFTESBURY AVENUE & QUEENS SQUARE – Life after Strand:
ABTT founded - Theatre design - Festival Hall effect - Wine tasting - Housing the Arts - Theatre Consultants - 'briefs' for operas - Show must go on - best seats hogged
by sound & lights - a real Doyen - Buckingham Palace! - Liverpool Everyman - USA masterclass tour - Teach-ins at Wyndhams - Not Godspell - Australia at last - strange
customs at Heathrow - TABS & Successors - AWG Sherry bar - Midhurst revisited - Coda upon the Pipe Organ.

APPENDIX 1 (Bentham era controls)

APPENDIX 2 (1936 Strand Catalogue)

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Set to help new generations to be aware of where the art and science of theatre lighting is coming from – and stimulate a nostalgia trip for those who lived through the period Francis Reid covers the 'revolution' from the fifties through to the present day. Although this is a highly personal account of the development of lighting design and technology and he admits that there are 'gaps', you'd be hard put to find anything of significance missing.

About the Author(s)

Francis Reid is a veteran freelance lighting designer and lecturer, writer and advisor on theatre design and technology. After reading science and psychology at Edinburgh University, he spent five years in stage and production management including Rep, Drama, Touring Opera, Aldeburgh Festival and Edinburgh Fringe.

He was lighting director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera throughout the decade of the sixties and subsequently responsible for the lighting design of over 300 productions including several in Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels, and over 30 in London (musicals such as Man of La Mancha, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Grease, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Anne of Green Gables; plays such as Sleuth, Move Over Mrs Markham, Vieux Carre, Soldiers, Flint, The Happy Apple, Anyone For Denis?– also many operas and over 60 pantomimes).

From 1979 to 1981 he was director of the Theatre Royal in Bury St.Edmunds, and from 1982 to 1987 head of theatre design at London's Central School of Art & Design. He has served on the boards of Norwich Puppet Theatre, Norwich Playhouse, Extemporary Dance Theatre, and Festival City Theatres Trust.

He taught Lighting Design at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1965 until 1983 and has been a regular visiting lecturer at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal since 1974.

Francis Reid is the author of The Stage Lighting Handbook, now in its 6th edition and translated into Spanish and Swedish. Other titles include The Staging Handbook, Theatre Administration (also in Spanish), Designing For The Theatre, Stages For Tomorrow, The ABC of Stage Technology, The ABC of Stage Lighting, Lighting The Stage, The ABC of Theatre Jargon, Hearing the Light, Yesterday's Lights, Fading Light, Theatre Space and Discovering Stage Lighting (also in French).

He Provided the Theatre Buildings entry in Cambridge Guide to World Theatre and contributed to Making Space for Theatre. He was editor of TABS (1974-1977), wrote for each of the 56 issues of CUE (1979-1988) and reviewed many new theatres for the Architect's Journal.

He is a Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama.

Contents by chapter:

PROLOGUE

1 THE FIFTIES AND BEFORE: The Development of Lighting in the Staging of Drama,
1900-1945; Memories of the 1950s

2 THE SIXTIES: Lighting Control at Glyndebourne; Present Installation; Lantern Layout; Existing Switchboard; Theatre Switchboard Requirements; Glyndebourne Switchboard; Current stage lighting control techniques; Preset Levers; All-Electric Dimmers; Thyratron Valves; Saturable Reactors; Electro-Mechanical Dimmers (Console Preset); Glyndebourne; Multi-preset choke; Console preset; My view; Lighting Control In The Opera House - A Study Project; General Object; Primary object; Method of study; A 1961 Diary; London New Theatre (Now Albery Theatre); Meeting of Television Lighting Personnel at Strand; London Aldwych Theatre (Royal Shakespeare Company); Strand Electric Ltd, London; Hamburg Staatsoper; Hamburg Thalia Theater; Berlin Deutsche Oper; Tour of Deutsche Oper. (Newly opened – six weeks ago); Reiche & Vogel Factory; Vienna Staatsoper; Nuremberg Schauspielhaus; Nuremberg Opernhaus; Furth Stadtheater; Siemens at Erlangen; Munich Cuvilliestheater; Salzburg Landestheater; Salzburg Grosses Festpielhaus; Stuttgart Staatstheater; Mannheim Nationaltheater – Grosses Haus; Mannheim Nationaltheater – Kleines Haus; AEG in Frankfurt; Frankfurt Schauspielhaus; Frankfurt New Television Studios; Cologne Opernhaus; Gelsenkirchen Stadtheater; Münster Stadtheater; Brussels National Theatre; Brussels Monnaie; ADB in Brussels; Liege Opera; How They Light Their Stages On The Continent; Lanterns; Influences That Changed Glyndebourne Lighting; A Boast Renewed; Response To Comments By ABTT Lighting Committee; The New Lighting Installation At Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Scope Of The New Lighting Controls; BKSTS Seminar; Liverpool Empire; Eastbourne Congress Theatre; Golders Green Hippodrome; Brighton Theatre Royal; Stratford-upon-Avon Royal Shakespeare Theatre; Techniques of Stage Lighting

3 THE SEVENTIES: This Blessed Plot; Key to "Blessed Plot"; The Memory Revolution: A Modular Transformation Scene; From Pani Of Candle Street (Kandl Gasse); CCT; The Lighting Archive At Pennsylvania State University; From Light Archives; Why shall we preserve?; What shall we preserve?; Where shall we preserve?; When shall we preserve?; A Memory Lighting Control For RADA; From MMS For Glyndeboune; CCT Improves Its Silhouette; The CCT Roadshow; Lighting Design In Germany; What's My Lime? (or Whither shall I follow?); Parblazer: the Throwaway Bulb; From Does Britain Need Such An Annual Exchange; Rockboard; Hotting Up For A Colour War; ABTT Trade Fair; Scene Setter; Le Maitre Bring Style to the Flash Box; Duet: this is the Big Break-Through; Dimmer Memory And The Lighting Designer; Softly Spreading; Lighting The Stages Of Today (& Tomorrow); Lighting: the Concept and the Realisation; Lighting Factors Influencing a Performance Building; The Conception of a Production's Lighting Style; Realising a Production's Lighting Concept

4 THE EIGHTIES: Look Both Ways; Lighting; Machinery; Design; Sound; Architecture; What Else?; Digital Organs; Mini Turn; Pre-heat; ABTT 1980; Microprocessing a Georgian Theatre; Shall I see it From the Box Office?; Rented Light; Financial Advantages; Technical Advantages; Artistic Advantages; But and it is a large BUT; Any Light for Denis?; Lighting the Show; Stage; Film; Television; Rock & Road; Technology; Colour; Second Day; International; From Podiumtechnologie in Amsterdam; The I.T. Revolution; Stroking the Timing; Shopping at USITT; VARI-LITE – A Quantum Leap for Stage Luminaires; Into the Future with Vari-Lite; From Frederick Bentham, First Fellow of the ABTT; Farewell to Dimmer Rooms?; Crystal Balls; From NoTT 86; A Theatre Man at PLASA; Photokina 1986; A Siemens in the Garden; At The 1987 PLASA Show; Strand's Bristol Spectacular; Lighting for Entertainment at the Theatre Royal; Spotlights; Lekos go International; Remotes; Control; Colour Filters; The National Theatre, Taiwan; Auditorium Positions; Stage Lighting Bridge; Pipes and Ladders; Instrument Types; Lighting Control; Concert Hall; A personal verdict; States or Moves?; From USITT in Disneyland; From USITT; Light Archaeology; The Theatre Lighting Year; Strand at 75; New Light Sources in Entertainment; Small (Backstage) World; Low Voltage Beams; Post-modern Lighting Control at the BBC; The Q 2 Lighting Control System; The Leopard Electronic Patching System; Indications for Lighting Control's Future?; Showlight in Amsterdam

5 THE NINETIES: Avoiding a Decadent Decade; Fred Bentham At 80; SIEL 90; SIEL 90 Looking for Trends in European Common Marketing; Rosco 119; A Bright Future For Dimming?; Packaging; Strand EC90; The Future?; Will Lighting Become The Victim Of Its Own Technology?; DMX and All That; Modelbox Autolight; Is Your Backstage Environmentally Friendly?; Photokina; Photokina 90; Showpersons; A Greener PLASA; Crystal Balls; The What and the How: Lighting Design and Lighting
Management; Low Voltage; Colours; Controls; Manufacturing for the Dream Industry is Still a Growing Concern for the ABTT; Showlight '93 at Bradford; Diffusion in the Theatre; Theatre Technicians: Who Are We?; Berlin Showtech; Archival Documentation of Performance Lighting; Lighting Tomorrow's Opera; From To Move Forward, First Look Back?; Showlight 20001 – Last Words

INDEX

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