IN THE QUIRKS By Glen Mikkelsen, CVE The Dramatic Story Of THEATER LIGHTING
As a venue manager of an Ancient Greek theatre, the sun was your ally. After Act One, it would not be unusual for you to take the stage and announce, “We will now have an intermission to set the light for the next scene.” With the likely addition of, “Wine and olive bars are open for your pleasure.” The Greek theatron, “a place
of seeing”, was typically built on a hillside, in the open air, and faced east to west, so that the afternoon sunlight illuminated the actors, and not the patrons. With no ar- - tivals played from dawn till dusk, and sunlight set the mood of the tragedy or comedy. Intermissions sunlight angle needed for a scene. Plus, Greek stagehands sometimes alter the sun’s rays. These early lighting designs of Greek theatres - rical lighting that continues to evolve. The Romans built upon the
Greek theatrical tradition, but they added awnings stretched over the audience to soften the sun’s glare. Outdoors, Roman theatres also began to use torches and candles for evening shows. These performances must shifting shadows across the set and faces of the actors. For the next thousand years, whether in ampitheatres, or
on steps of cathedrals, or in public squares, theatre was typ- ically an outdoor activity – reliant upon the sun and over- sized torches and lamps to illuminate the show. As indoor theatres opened, venue managers moved towards using candles for light. It was the Italians, during the 1500s, who introduced
some of the theatrical light artistry we are familiar with to- day. At that time, sometimes hundreds of candles illuminated the show. Made of sheep or beef fat, the tallow candles were - placing candles as needed. Tallow candles were cheaper than bees- wax but needed more attention due to their quick disintegration. - ering candles, were placed above the stage and audience, illumi- nating everyone throughout the entire performance. The chan- dripping splendor! They would have been lowered not only for - ming candles. During the play, a change from daylight to night was created by the quick skill of the Andrea Palladio’s indoor the-
atre in Vicenza, Italy, used basic light sources: candles,
torches,
open-wick lamps, and pink knots. gold paint and gold embellish- ments, would have shimmered safety systems, it is no wonder
theatres burned to the ground. During the Italian Renaissance, it was an Italian architect, Sebastiano Serlio, who documented altering the color of light to set the mood of a scene. Serlio wrote about placing glass to alter light color. The light was altered by the color of the light, and ammonium chloride held in a copper vessel pro- duced blue light.
18 Facility Manager Magazine
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