Christine Ferriter is one of the several dozen women participating in panels at LDI2018—in her case adding her outstanding lighting design and programming skills to a panel that also features three bearded industry veterans: Overseeing Repertory Lighting for Multiple Venues.
Live Design met up with Ferriter about her career, programming skills, workflow, and more.
1. What was your career path to date?
As an undergrad, I went to Webster University in St. Louis where the students share performance space with two professional companies, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and Opera Theatre of St. Louis. I gained valuable experience there working alongside top professionals as an assistant and electrician so when I moved back home to Chicago after graduation, I started working right away as a freelance designer and technician. Designing in Chicago’s storefront theatres meant I had to be really creative with mismatched equipment and limited dimmers and tech time. I designed a lot of shows where I was also the ME and programmer, so I learned to work fast and efficiently, and to appreciate both aspects of the industry. I designed every chance I could get, and in between design projects, I would work at the bigger houses like Chicago Shakespeare Theater, The Court Theatre, Writer’s Theater, and the Museum of Contemporary Art as an electrician, assistant, and programmer.
Eventually, I took a position as the assistant lighting supervisor at Actors Theatre of Louisville, which has three performance spaces. During the annual Humana Festival of New American Plays, I was the ME in the arena space, the Bingham Theatre. After a few years, I moved on to be one of the master electricians at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which also has three main performance spaces. There I also took on a lot of the moving light programming. It was also there, sitting behind the EOS at the tech table and working closely with the designers that made me realize how much I missed designing myself, which is how I ended up back in graduate school working toward my MFA at California Institute of the Arts.
2. How did you learn your programming skills?
I learned the foundation of my programming skills from Peggy Thierheimer, who was the ME at the Rep and Opera Theatre in St. Louis at the time and then from a lot of on the job experience. I’ve had the opportunity to program for some of the best designers working today and have learned so much from watching them work. I love the creative exchange that happens between a designer and programmer. Because I’m also a designer, I’m always trying to get into their heads to anticipate what they need and then find shortcuts to speed up, so their design process is never slowed down by programming. My screens snapshots and macros will evolve over the course of tech depending on how each designer likes to work to maximize efficiency. Teching in repertory at OSF was always a fun challenge because I was programming for three different designers at the same time; each show would typically rotate onstage to tech for two days at a time over the course of a few weeks, so I was constantly adapting to a new programming style.
3. What paperwork do you use, and how does it help organize multi-venue festivals?
Lightwright is a mainstay in my paperwork tool bag. Both Actor’s Theatre and Oregon Shakespeare Festival use a system based on position numbers rather than unit numbers, which means every hanging position has a unique coordinate within the theater. This allows us to hang directly from the Instrument Schedule without having to reference a plot or measure out hanging positions relative to each light since the pipes are already labeled with distinct position numbers. For example, if a light is plotted at 3 CAT #54, there is only one location in the theatre where that could be, even if that’s the only light on 3 CAT, it’s still listed as #53. This is incredibly useful in keeping track of adds, cuts, and moves in repertory situations, especially since both ATL and OSF stagger their openings so plots layer on top of each other throughout the festivals. There is never a question of which light is where or belongs to which show. Each theatre has its own shorthand entered into LW to designate if the light is between position numbers, top hung, etc. At OSF, up to five shows may be in the same LW file so the user-defined columns and limits available in LW are key to keeping track of and sorting the information specific to each production or for viewing the big picture.
4. What is the most challenging design project you have worked on, and why?
One of my first jobs out of undergrad was designing for Circus Flora, an intimate one-ring European style family circus based in St. Louis. It was a lot of fun but also a huge challenge working in a circus tent where the angles of the hanging positions and dimmers were very limited. Of course, the safety of the performers had priority over the design so I not only had to make sure that no one was blinded by any lights as they were flying through the air or balancing on a high wire but that they also looked good and the show had a cohesive design. I ended up working for them for ten seasons, so there was the added challenge of finding creative ways to change up the design from year to year to keep the lighting fresh and interesting even though the limitations remained the same from year to year.
5. What advice would you give to the young women going into the lighting industry today?
Be yourself. Your greatest asset will be what makes you unique. Load-ins and techs can be long and stressful, but if you’re true to yourself, respectful, and generous, people will want to work with you. Similarly, be proactive and seek out the people and projects that you want to work with. Sometimes all it takes to work with that director you’ve always admired, or that designer who’s inspired you is to reach out to them and ask; you’ll never get your dream job if you don’t go for it. In terms of the day-to-day work, pay attention and bring snacks.