Noah Monje is from San Diego, California. He works as an electrician, and lighting console operator, but at the The Poway Center for the Performing Arts (PCPA), he is the in-house lighting designer for the high schools, dance companies, and other clientele that rent the space. He also freelances as a lighting designer to schools and youth theatre companies across San Diego. Noah is excited to be attending Northeastern University- NYC in the fall.
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Live Design: What brought you to this scholarship?
Noah Monje: I found it online while applying to college.
LD: What drew you to design?
NM: I started lighting design with the student written and produced One Acts my freshman year of high school. I really enjoyed learning how impactful lighting was to live theatre, and how it can affect the way a scene looks and feels. It was also the first time I really got to get into the lighting design process. From drafting a plot, picking color, focusing, and even programming on my own (the most tedious but also my favorite part haha).
LD: What are some of your career goals?
NM: I would like to try out lighting design in other places of entertainment. Places like concerts, festivals, and even tv/film. I'd also love to be able to design for companies in my home city of San Diego. I grew up watching shows in their shows with my family, and I think it would be a neat full circle moment.
LD: How can the industry better serve underrepresented communities?
NM: Make live theatre more easily accessible. In the house, people from all walks of life should be able to enjoy the art that so many of us fell in love with. While behind the scenes, people from these communities will be given the chance to not only reiterate a story that's already been told, but get to create their own stories, supported by their unique backgrounds. Younger generations of the underrepresented will get to see that they belong here too.
LD: Who or what are your influences?
NM: My family. They taught me to always try to be understanding of everyone. That their lives are as unique as our own, and that we all deserve to have ours respected and told.
LD: What challenges have you faced?
NM: Something that I always find myself fighting against, is time. No matter how much I prep, and how well I think a rehearsal goes, there is always one more note to work on. This leads me to feeling like some shows I work on aren't "complete." Because after opening, I tend to find things in my work that I could've done differently. I find this to be a blessing, and a curse. I don't particularly enjoy my own self criticisms, but I take comfort in knowing that I am at least able to find ways to better my past choices.
LD: Do you have a bucket list item?
NM: I would love to travel out of the country more. The world is wide, and there are a multitude of people and cultures that reside on it. I would love to enrich myself in them.