ABSTRACT
Time and budget form another set of conditions within which a lighting designer must work. In the best situations, a lighting designer will be brought onto a project at an early stage and will have lots of time to be part of the team and to plan the project. However, lighting often isn’t given serious consideration until much later than the other production elements. Areas of a production can also fall behind schedule or could become more costly than initially planned and the lighting department will often be asked to help make up for the shortages which these other areas have produced. I can’t remember the number of times that my focus or cue writing sessions have been cut short or even been eliminated due to problems that occurred from the load-in of the scenic elements of a production. Despite these compromises, the lighting must still be created in a manner that brings justice to the production and it does no good to whine about the problems. The first performance or opening must go on as scheduled, and the lighting designer needs to remain cool and collected during these stressful rehearsal times. Most importantly, they must remain flexible so that they can adjust to the bumps in the road that frequently occur in the production process.
