Let There Be Light
Next to Normal was my biggest project to date, with over 150 light cues. The small cast of six each had their own color scheme that was utilized when they were on stage. The brainwaves in the background were also programed to be in different colors, and “strobed” with parts of the rock songs. LED bars lit up the textured background and at one point, beat in time to the “heartbeat” with the music.
It was a challenge, but fun, to use light to tell this story - especially since the last song’s title was “Let There Be Light.” In that number, I started it very low light and then slowly brought in each color as the character came on. At the finale, the cast was plunged into darkness and backlit and then suddenly the stage was flooded with as bright white as I could get it to be as their song turned to hope.
This production of Next to Normal was performed at the Evergreen Playhouse in March, 2020. It was unfortunate that it’s performance run was cut short due to COVID-19. They are hoping to re-mount it.
UPDATE: I was fortunate to rebuild this show for the remount of this production in February, 2022.
