Creative consultant for the BLMC since its debut nine years ago, Tony Award-winning lighting designer Jules Fisher has lit over 150 Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, as well as film, ballet, opera, television, and rock-and-roll concert tours. His current productions Assassins and Caroline, or Change (the focus musical of this year’s Master Classes) have been nominated for numerous Tony awards, and he and his partner Peggy Eisenhauer received the 2004 Drama Desk award for their lighting of Assassins. Fisher has been honored with 16 Tony nominations and won 7 Tony awards for Lighting Design, a record in this category: for Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk, 1996; Jelly's Last Jam, 1992; The Will Rogers Follies, 1991; Grand Hotel, 1990; Dancin', 1978; Ulysses in Nighttown, 1973; and Pippin, 1972. He received Drama Desk awards for Frankenstein, Grand Hotel, Jelly's Last Jam, and Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk. His other recent theatre credits include Jane Eyre, The Wild Party, Ragtime, Gypsy. His credits as a producer include The Rink, the award-winning Lenny, Bob Fosse's Dancin', Rock N' Roll! The First 5,000 Years, Elvis: An American Musical, and Dangerous Games. He designed the lighting for Kevin Kline's production of Hamlet for WNET-TV, and lit productions of Porgy and Bess and A Midsummer Night's Dream at the New York City Opera. Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer are partners in the studio Third Eye, which conceives and designs lighting for all forms of entertainment.
Peggy Eisenhauer is partner to world-renown lighting designer, Jules Fisher. Together they received the 1996 Tony Award for Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in da Funk. In 1998 she received dual Tony nominations for Ragtime and Cabaret, and in 2000 received a second dual Tony nomination for A Wild Party and Marie Christine, followed by a 2001 nomination for Jane Eyre. This year she and Fisher are nominated for a Tony for Assassins and were honored with the Drama Desk Award for the play. She is additionally represented on Broadway this season by Caroline, or Change. Their designs of the theatrical lighting sequences in collaboration with Cinematographer Dion Beebe on the film Chicago was honored with a 2003 Academy Award nomination for Cinematography. Their concert lighting may also bee seen in the films Marci "X" and School of Rock. In the music industry she has created concert production designs for Whitney Houston; Crosby, Stills and Nash; Fishbone; Neil Young; and Tracy Chapman. Her designs have been seen internationally in 26 countries across six continents. Their studio, Third Eye, conceives and designs lighting for all forms of entertainment.
Lighting designer Beverly Emmons has designed for Broadway, Off Broadway, and regional theatre, dance, and opera, in the US and abroad. Her Broadway credits include Annie Get Your Gun, Jekyll & Hyde, The Heiress, Passion, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Hapgood, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, High Rollers, Stepping Out, The Elephant Man, A Day in Hollywood, a Night in the Ukraine, The Dresser, Piaf, and Doonesbury. Her lighting of Amadeus with production designer John Bury won a Tony award. Off Broadway she worked on the Vagina Monologues and has worked with Joseph Chaikin, Meredith Monk, and Jack Hofsiss, among others. For Robert Wilson, she has designed lighting for productions spanning 13 years; most notably in America, Einstein on the Beach and Civil Wars Pt .V. Emmons' designs for dance have included work for Lucinda Childs, Trisha Brown, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham. She has been awarded six Tony nominations, the 1976 Lumen Award, 1984 and 1986 Bessies, and a 1980 Obie for Distinguished Lighting.
Tony Award-winning lighting designer Donald Holder is currently represented on Broadway with Little Shop of Horrors, The Boy From Oz, Movin' Out (Tony, Drama Desk nominations), Thoroughly Modern Millie, and The Lion King, for which he won the 1998 Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards. His Off Broadway credits include Three Days of Rain and Polish Joke at Manhattan Theatre Club, and A Man of No Importance and Observe the Sons of Ulster...at Lincoln Center. Other Broadway credits include Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, King Hedley II, Juan Darien (Tony and Drama Desk nominations), The Green Bird, Bells Are Ringing, Hughie, Holiday, and Eastern Standard. This fall he will be designing The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera and August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean on Broadway, followed by the new musical All Shook Up. Other Off Broadway credits include: Chaucer in Rome, Everett Beekin, Jitney, Tiny Alice, Saturday Night, and many others.
Vivien Leone has worked as associate lighting designer with many of the lighting designers on the BLMC faculty: with Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer on Caroline, or Change, Don Holder on Little Shop of Horrors, and Beverly Emmons on the tour of Annie Get Your Gun. Frequent collaboration with Andrew Bridge and Paul Gallo have led to the lighting designs for Broadway productions Saturday Night Fever, Sunset Boulevard, The Phantom of the Opera, Seigfred & Roy, and Titanic, Big, the Musical, Music of the Night, Crazy for You, respectively. Additional credits include associate lighting designer for La Boheme designed by Nigel Levings, assistant to Tharon Musser on Broadway Bound, skills were also used for the SAP Industrial, Sony Industrial, and IBM Innoventions, as well as the special effects of Into the Woods. Leone was the principle lighting designer for the U.S. tours of My Fair Lady and The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and was also lighting designer for Off Broadway productions The Jungle Book, Red Scare on Sunset, The Lady in Question, Time Square Angel, and Psycho Beach Party to name a few.
This year Brian MacDevitt’s lighting is nominated for two Tony awards: for his work on Fiddler on the Roof and Henry IV. He won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for Nine and was nominated in 2002 for Into The Woods . His lighting designs can be seen on numerous revivals and original productions, on and off Broadway, including A Raisin in the Sun , Match, The Retreat From Moscow , Long Day's Journey Into Night , Tartuffe , Short Talks on the Universe , Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune , Morning's at Seven , The Women , Urinetown , Major Barbara , A Thousand Clowns , The Invention of Love , Judgment at Nuremberg , The Dinner Party , The Ride Down Mt. Morgan , True West , Night Must Fall , Wait Until Dark , The Diary of Anne Frank , Proposals , Side Show , Present Laughter, Sex and Longing, Summer and Smoke, Master Class, Love! Valour! Compassion!, and What's Wrong With This Picture?.
Clifton Taylor has designed for the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Maria Benitez's Teatro Flamenco, the Joyce Trisler Danscompany, Ballet Hispanico, the Juilliard School's Department of Dance, Philadelphia's Zero Moving Company, and the Sardono Dance Theater from Java (for the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival). He has collaborated with choreographers Milton Myers, Lila York, Benjamin Harkarvy, Helmut Gottschild, Jacqulyn Buglisi, Carmen de Lavallade, Maureen Fleming, Karen Bamonte, and Sardono Kusomo. In addition to his work in dance, Mr. Taylor's scenic and lighting designs have been seen at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, the Wolf Trap Filene Center in Washington, D.C., the Barter Theatre, the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, American Stage Festival, the Pennsylvania Opera Theatre, the Pasadena Playhouse, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Cleveland Playhouse, the Dallas Theatre Center, and on television for PBS and the Arts and Entertainment Network. He recently designed the lighting for the off-Broadway production of Frozen.
Meet the Lighting Projection Panel:
Laura Frank has been mastering the language between art and technology for years now. Working as an automated lighting programmer, digital lighting designer, and visual director, she is a digital lighting and media specialist whose work has been featured in television, concerts, Broadway and regional theatre, industrials, and architectural and special events. Some of her noteworthy projects are VH1 Divas Las Vegas, the Opening Ceremonies for the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, Madonna's Re-Invention Tour 2004, the Sundance Film Festival, the 2003 Pennsylvania Governor's Gala, and film work for School of Rock and upcoming Manchurian Candidate. Her Broadway credits include Gypsy, Annie Get Your Gun, Amour, and Follies. Frank’s digital lighting was displayed at the Grand Central Station Holiday Lights 2002. She provided lighting direction for David Bowie, and visual direction and digital lighting and media for David Bowie, A Reality Tour.
Projection designer Wendall Harrington received the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and American Theatre Wing awards for her design of The Who's Tommy. Her Broadway credits include Drowning Crow, Amy's View, Putting It Together, The Capeman, Ragtime, Freak, Company, Racing Demon, Four Baboons Adoring The Sun, The Will Rogers Follies, The Heidi Chronicles, My One and Only, and They're Playing Our Song. Opera credits include A View from the Bridge at Metropolitan Opera House; The Juniper Tree at ART; The Photographer at BAM; The Magic Flute in Florence; Orpheo in Vienna. Ballet credits include Othello for ABT, Ballet Mecainque for Doug Varone; Anna Karenina for the Royal DanishBallet. Off-Broadway and regional credits include Tommy Tune: White Tie and Tails, Hapgood, As Thousands Cheer, Night and Her Stars, Merrily We Roll Along (three times). In the concert circuit, she designed projection for the Talking Heads (Stop Making Sense), Simon and Garfunkel (Old Friends), and Chris Rock (Blind Ambition). Ms. Harrington is the former design director of Esquire magazine and has created the player introductions for the New York Knicks, Liberty, and Rangers in addition to two fine daughters. She recently designed and directed the premiere of Snapshots with the Elements Quartet, and Arjuna's Dilemma a new opera based on the Bhagavad Gita.
Projection designer Peter Nigrini's designs include: Biro at the Public, Jean Genet’s Elle for The Art Party, Say Goodnight Gracie, and John Eaton’s chamber operas Don Quixote and In As Much. He also designed projection and theatrical lighting for the Mohegan Sun Planetarium. He has designed scenery for The Orphan of Zhao at Lincoln Center, and lighting for City Voices at Het Veem Theater, Amsterdam. Fine art projects include Digital Campfires for the EXIT festival (Sweden), and Local Currencies: Diogenes/Barnum, a series of narrative photo installations, exhibited at the ICA London, the Dumbo Art Center, and the San Francisco MoMA. Upcoming projects include: The Booth Variations at 59E59 Theaters, Haroun and the Sea of Stories for City Opera, and Cosmicomics, a new work for chamber ensemble and projection commissioned by the Sequitur Ensemble.
Moderator of the BLMC Projection Panel, Peter Wexler is ancient enough to have been around with Jules Fischer when a new thing called "Off-Broadway" was invented and when it was possible to manage a career being a scene, costume, lighting, and projection designer all at once. Some productions or events he worked on where he and friends have used projected images are: The Happy Time-Broadway (1967), In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Vivian Beaumont Theatre, Linc. Center, 1969), Les Troyens (Metropolitan Opera, 1973-93), Starfest (Dallas Outdoor Music Festival, 1980), Rocky Mountain Music Festival (1984), Smithsonian Institution D.N.A. Exhibit-The Search For Life (1987), Carlos Mosely Pavilion-Met. Opera, New York Philharmonic Parks Concerts (1990-Present), The Talking Cure (Marc Taper Forum, Spring 2004).