Jen Schriever is an internationally acclaimed lighting designer and Obie Award-winner specializing in theatre and opera. Her designs have been seen from Broadway to the West End and in opera houses from Seattle and New York to London and St. Petersburg, Russia. Her work on A Strange Loop in 2022, and Death Of A Salesman in 2023, were nominated for lighting design Tony Awards, and this year she won the Tony Award for Best Lighting of a Musical, with her co-designer, Michael Arden for The Lost Boys. (Schriever and Arden also won the Drama Desk and Outer Circle Critics Award for The Lost Boys, and Dane Laffrey was also honored with the award for Outstanding Scenic Design.)
The musical is based on the 1987 film of the same name, and while it has dark moments as teenagers navigate the dangerous reality of a town harboring a dark secret, there are moments of comedic relief mixed into the emotional depths of a coming of age story. Schriever and the rest of the design team effortlessly switch between a sunny and kitschy beach town during the day and a sinister night, filled with both the exhilarating freedom offered by a vampire gang who can literally fly away from the usual teenage angst and the horror the price of that freedom entails. The lighting design must be flexible enough to encompass a sudden reveal from the darkness to keep the audience on edge and to evoke a party atmosphere in carefree California.
Despite the inherent difficulties in translating a film into a stage musical complete with motorcycle chases and flying vampires, the Tony nomination comes as no surprise and reviewers have consistently praised the lighting. The New York Post said the piece has "lighting by Jen Schriever and Arden that’s so gorgeous it should be billed above the title," and Entertainment Weekly praised the lighting as "impeccable."
The designer talked to Live Design about the shared creative process, illuminating a thriller set over three stories, and having fun with an 80s rock aesthetic.
- 31 Days Of Plots: Jen Schriever—A Strange Loop
- Live Talk with Jen Schriever
- By Design: Lifespan Of A Fact, Lighting By Jen Schriever
Live Design: What attracted you to this project?
Jen Schriever: What didn’t attract me to this project? The Lost Boys is a dark, sexy, fun thriller vampire rock musical that is also a massive, fun challenge; teeming with brilliant artists, makers, and some of my dearest friends. Also, opening a new musical straight away on Broadway is no easy task, and I love crazy challenges.
LD: As an established and award-winning designer, why did you take on the role of co-designer with the director? How did working so closely with the director change your approach to the design?
JS: When Michael approached me about The Lost Boys, he asked if he could co-design lights from the get go. He didn’t want to offend me, but I was immediately game.
No director would choose to get in the muck of the lighting design process unless they really, REALLY loved it. A lot of people have asked me about the co-design as if it has some sort of dramatic reason, but it’s really pure and simple: Michael is an incredibly curious artist and has been absorbing lighting design his whole career. He was excited to play and create with light. So many designers go onto becoming directors later on in their careers, why not the other way around? I admire his desire to design, he could have easily stayed on the sidelines, but instead he put on his waders and got in there with me.
Our Lost Boys is so much about atmosphere, danger, scale, and emotional point of view. As a thriller, light is absolutely central to how the whole thing works, so the lighting design benefited from being embedded in the storytelling at every level. The lighting, and the show, really thrived through our shared creative process. He could stage the show knowing intimately the plan we shaped to create the lighting scape for the world we were building.
Theatre history is full of director and scenic designer partnerships that create singular visual languages—Michael shares one of those with Dane Laffrey. Oftentimes the lighting designer can feel sort of secondary to that relationship, even if unintentionally. In this case the three of us went all in together. The ideas flowed in all directions and the creative process flourished. I can’t picture The Lost Boys happening any other way.
LD: Would you have taken on a senior co-design role if you hadn’t worked with Arden before?
JS: Co-designing anything is extremely intimate and must be entered into carefully. I wouldn’t do it with just anyone. About Michael: there was already a foundation of mutual respect. It was also selfish, I got to be intimately embedded in his uniquely passionate and creative brain. I love to grow and challenge myself and I love to share and collaborate. The co-design was as much for me as it was for him. I gained an artistic teammate, someone to be in the trenches alongside me and someone to learn from. He’s challenged me, supported me, corroborated my instincts, and pushed the work in a way that is hard to do on one's own.
LD: Arden has a reputation for being a very visual director and has experience with sets, but were there moments when he talked about a cue or look he wanted and you had to explain it would be challenging?
JS: I mean, Michael has a deeply experienced and sophisticated understanding of lots of the technology and stage craft that go into making theatre. I knew he had the fluency of ‘lighting design’ when I said yes. Any little thing he might not have known, like a way of console syntax for example, he picked up in seconds.
What did happen, however, was we constantly pushed each other creatively. What made the process especially fun for me was that we are both thrilled by taking risks and big swings. Neither of us are afraid of the dark or getting to the bottom of the exact right solution. We’re both inexhaustible (just ask our team). Michael might propose something that I would not have started with or vice versa, and the other would instantly become inspired and build off the new idea. Our ideas are intertwined and hard to untangle.
LD: The set looks quite challenging – a lot of levels, a lot of railing etc that will throw shadows, and of course the vampires fly so there is an aerial element. How did these angles and effects impact your design in terms of fixture placement for example?
JS: Ok yes, the set is challenging but I knew immediately it would be a thrill to light. It’s difficult in that there’s tons of scenery to dodge and almost nothing is parallel to the edge of the stage, but on a certain level it’s very very easy: It’s a towering, porous, angular black void—a gift to a lighting designer.
There is no room for typical overhead trusses or even typical ladders or booms—nothing about this show is typical! So, the first part of the process was claiming space. We have a unique first electric that doubles as a blackout curtain—which is the only lighting position parallel to the edge of the stage. It’s barely squeezed in between our fire curtain and the scenic ‘Santa Carla’ sign. We’re also able to sneak some diagonal overhead positions tucked alongside the side walls which are on an extreme angle.
Beyond that, there are lights hidden everywhere they can go: a constellation of small floating trusses high above everything, sneaky side positions built into and beyond every scenic arch, and positions built into the deck and every trap, all in the interest of getting the exact right angle and quality of light into the room. Some lighting positions re-trim throughout the show to create much lower angles or to get out of the way of things. It’s a fun puzzle.
LD: Was that the main challenge?
JS: Though the recently renovated Palace Theatre is beautiful, the walls are extra pale with fresh coats of beige paint. This is a really dark show at points, and we’re trying to focus the eye, often trying to distract or hide something onstage in order to create theatre magic. I was nervous the theatre itself would be a huge challenge to overcome—but thankfully we’ve been able to dial in the stray lumens. It was important for the world of Santa Carla to have limitless expression—you don’t want to be contemplating the edge of the world, ie. “I’m in this seat here, and you’re doing the play up there” we wanted it to feel like an expanse of possibility that we’re all inside.
Lighting flying performers is also very challenging in general, but especially with the way we designed their movements. The guys fly in and out from all directions and sometimes all together. Every flying moment has to be lit in a new context—artistically staying true to the story of the moment, but also practically keeping the beam of light tracking the performer big enough to catch the sway, small enough to stay off the lines, and fast enough to keep up. We spent a lot of time honing this. Obviously the audience knows the performers are tethered, but to take the heat off the equipment and the focus on the story helps our imagination believe they might actually be flying.
Another challenge was simply time. Making something this huge from scratch on Broadway is one of the craziest things I've ever done. It took us every second to get to where we are now.
LD: Were there some fixtures you usually rely on that wouldn’t work in this space?
JS: It was more about positions I usually rely on that wouldn’t work with this set – for example, traditional side lighting positions are not possible at all, so we had to get really creative on how we could get light in. There are hidden cutouts everywhere in the set out of sight lines where we can sneak light through. Offstage, we have lighting positions in the only spaces that aren’t occupied by scenery or flying vampires. In many places it’s an extremely tight squeeze with scenery passing within inches. For such a huge theatre we really fill up all the space!
LD: The production is a story about vampires, but it is also a story about a young boy growing up. What does this mean for your design?
JS: What I love about The Lost Boys is that underneath the vampires, it’s a coming of age story. It’s really about loneliness, desire, identity, family, transformation, and the scary experience of becoming someone new. When we meet brothers Michael & Sam and their mom, Lucy, they are starting anew in Santa Carla, California. It was important to me that Santa Carla felt other-worldly, as seen through Michael’s eyes as he discovers it for the first time. When you’re young and encountering a new world everything feels bigger, stranger, sexier, scarier - this is how I wanted Santa Carla to feel. The lighting often makes Santa Carla feel dangerous – but also intoxicating. The vulnerable and extremely human moments that exist inside this world remain in the same vocabulary. Sometimes the darkness isn’t frightening, sometimes it's a place that allows you to be tender and vulnerable.
LD: Can you talk us through your fixture choices?
JS: We needed a big variety of fixture types to get this show off the ground. Out front we used Martin MAC Ultra Performances for their punch and how great they looked on people. They’re also peppered overstage in faraway “reachy” places, they are so bright and wide and gorgeous.
The workhorses of the onstage rig are Martin MAC Viper XIPs and they really do every job, again the main priority was how great they look on people, how wide they can get, the color they can mix.
We have Martin MAC Encores where we needed a smaller fixture, and where we needed a really tiny but mighty light we hid some Martin MAC Ones or Auras depending on the use.
For blasting sunlight into the space we rely on the Martin Mac Aura Raven XIP, and wow, they are bright! These are new to me, and I loved how they were able to make it feel like maybe the actual sun is just offstage left.
Of course, we also use a pile of different light curtains including the GLP X4 Bar, X5 Bar, and Chroma Q ColorForce IIs in different places all to exploit their individual qualities.
We have miles of pixel tape, GLP X4 Atoms embedded in the scenery, and hundreds of individually controlled Glasson Calesco bulbs dot the boardwalk of Santa Carla. We need the highest level of control in order to really play with the darkness and be incredibly selective about what we’re revealing and how.
Oh, and don't forget the retrofitted custom made LED R40 strip lights.
The show was programmed on an ETC Apex console using expansion processing and additional software, including LightStrike.
LD: Was working on a musical versus a play more fun for you?
JS: Any time I get to rock out is, of course, so fun. In our version of The Lost Boys, David’s vampire gang is also a rock band, so that opened up another part of the visual language—80s rock aesthetic. Sometimes it’s deployed quite literally, like in “I Have to Have You,” the rock song they play on the Boardwalk, and sometimes it’s baked into the show as an artistic choice, like in the motorcycle chase.
LD: What is your favorite design moment?
JS: Oh, this is a hard one, but I think what I love most is how synced every department is, moving the show forward from space to space. The transitions are really tricky and massive, and we’ve embraced them as importantly as any storytelling element. The show wants to feel continually propulsive, so the way we move forward needed to be as theatrically cinematic as possible. Specifically, I’d say when the vamp lair becomes the bridge, I am in awe of what we all created. Music, design, staging are creating a tension that still gets to me every time.
Gear
58 Martin MAC Viper XIP
46 Martin MAC Ultra Performance
28 Martin MAC Encore Performance CLD
27 Martin MAC One
24 Martin MAC Aura
6 Martin MAC Aura Raven XIP
81 GLP X4 Bar 20
43 GLP X4 Bar 10
13 GLP X5 Bar
34 ETC Lustr3 Lekos
31 GLP x4 Atom
27 ChromaQ ColorForce II 72
16 ChromaQ ColorForce II 12
2 ChromaQ ColorForce II 48
3 Robert Juliat Lancelot Followspots with SpotMe Servers
15 Custom LED R40 Strips
5 Gantom 7s
14 ETC Source 4 minis
11 ETC Source 4 Pars
Crew
Associate Lighting Designer - Aaron Tacy
Assistant Lighting Designer - Vicki Bain
USA 829 DMC - Alayo Oloko
Draftsperson - Paul Vaillancourt
Programmer - Ben Fichthorn
Automation Tracking and Special FX programmers - Scott Tusing and Harrison Freni
Palace Theatre House Electrician - Mia Roy
Production Electrician - Jeremy Wahlers
Head Electrician - Erik Plath
Pyrotechnician/Deck Electrician - Megan Frazier
Followspot Operators - Ken Weinberg, Stephanie Palmer, and Karissa Riehl
Advance Electricians - Anastasia Sioris and Will Hanson