The Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis is re-staging its popular production of Pinocchio, with lighting by Karin Olson. The show's unique concept, a group of painters arrive at a theatre to find an audience waiting for them and decide to tell the story of Pinocchio with whatever materials are to hand, requires the stage to transform from the ordinary to the magical.
The production runs September 8 to October 18.
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Live Design spoke to Olson about her journey into the profession, carrying on the visual language of the original designer, and being more likely to have a favorite angle than a favorite fixture.
Live Design: What inspired you to be a lighting designer and where did you train?
Karin Olson: I backed into lighting design by doing it. I started working professional calls in high school, when designers at my school connected me with calls at Park Square and a Children's Theatre Company tour load-in, and I just kept saying yes to the next thing.
I studied at the University of Minnesota, but the most important part of my training was having repeated opportunities to make work: try something, see what it actually does in the room, figure out where I was wrong, and adjust. The only thing that's changed since then is that I now get to do all of that experimentation in a 3D rendering before anything gets loaded in.
Early on, I worked alongside designers including Michael P. Kittel, Marcus Dilliard, Rebecca Fuller Jensen, and Jeff Bartlett. I learned as much from watching how they worked with other artists as from what they put onstage. Directors and choreographers have influenced me just as much as other designers, because I think of lighting as a core part of telling the story. I tend to get deep into the script or the music for several days or weeks before I ever open Vectorworks. A director once described working with me as having a second dramaturg in the room, which I took as a great compliment.
LD: What attracted you to this production of Pinocchio?
KO: Part of it was personal. This production was originally designed by Rebecca Fuller Jensen, a longtime friend and mentor who passed away recently. I understood the visual language she'd created, and our instincts about light were compatible enough that I could take care of her design rather than replace it.
I also love the theatrical conceit: the performers begin as painters who've arrived to work in a theatre, find an audience waiting, and decide to tell us Pinocchio with what they have on hand. At the start, the room can just be what it is: a theatre, exposed and fairly ordinary. Once the performers begin telling the story, lighting gets to participate in the act of imagination. We decide what the audience sees, what falls away, what suddenly becomes important, and how far we move from that ordinary world.
LD: When was Pinocchio previously staged at CTC, and how has your design changed from the original?
KO: The production premiered at CTC in 2013 and returned in 2016, both times with Becky's lighting design. I'm approaching this much more as a re-creation and interpretation than as a new design.
What I want to preserve isn't every technical choice one-for-one, but the logic underneath them: What is this system doing for the scene? Why this angle? Why does the world change here? Once I understand that, I can translate it into the equipment and circumstances we have now.
One place my own hand tends to show up is timing. I cue intricately and care about exactly when the audience notices something, when their attention shifts, when a joke lands, when danger enters the room, when something is revealed, and when it's held back. A cue doesn't have to call attention to itself to be doing narrative work. Sometimes a fraction of a beat changes how you experience a moment.
We're also replacing some equipment from the earlier productions that's no longer in service, so there are necessarily some technical differences. But I'm not interested in changing things simply because newer tools exist. The point is to preserve what the design is accomplishing dramatically.
LD: The staging seems challenging — five artists creating the set around them so the environment/colors change. How did this influence your approach to the design?
KO: What I like about the staging is that the objects never stop being what they are. A ladder can still be a ladder, a paintbrush can still be a paintbrush, and at the same time, the audience agrees to see something completely different. A ladder becomes a tree, a couple of cable racks become the guts of a whale. I love that.
Lighting helps make that shift. At the start, I want the theatre to feel exposed. You can see the room and understand the ordinary reality of these painters arriving to do a job. Once they begin telling the story, I can get much more selective: narrow the audience's attention, isolate an action, let something emerge out of the larger room, or change an object's emotional meaning without pretending it's physically changed.
Timing matters a lot in a show like this because the invention happens so fast. Sometimes a cue helps a transformation feel magical. Sometimes it helps a joke land. And sometimes the best choice is to stay out of the way, because the performers have already done everything the moment needs. I'm always thinking about what the audience needs to see, or feel, at that particular point in the story.
LD: What fixtures did you use and why did you choose them? Do you have a workhorse fixture that you rely on for lots of productions, or do your favorites change based on the production/venue?
KO: I'm more likely to have a favorite angle than a favorite fixture.
I start with what I need the light to do- where it needs to come from, what it needs to reveal, how precisely I need to shape it, what color I need, how it needs to change- and then find the tool that fits the purpose. I'm interested in technology when it gives me another way to tell the story, but I'm not especially attached to fixtures for their own sake.
For this remount, we're adding Halcyon Titanium fixtures to replace older equipment that's no longer in service. We're still heading into tech, so I don't have a fully formed opinion yet on how they'll function in this production, but I'm looking forward to finding out what they give us in the room.
My real workhorse is probably the overall system rather than any individual unit. I want a rig that gives me enough different directions and qualities of light that, once we're in the room with the actors, I can respond very specifically to what the story needs.