Featuring: Kolby Clarke (MFA Lighting Design Graduate Student)

What are your favorite food options on campus?

One or two times a week during the warm months campus is visited by various food trucks. It’s always nice to get outside for a moment, grab a taco, and remember why I like the air conditioning so much.

What has been your favorite show you have worked on so far?

The most exciting project is always the next one. One of the great parts of the program at SMU are the many opportunities to design realized work. As a lighting designer this means I am currently in tech for a production of Twelfth Night, am scheduled to focus Light Shining in Buckinghamshire in another week, and am in design meetings for the upcoming opera early next year, L’Elisir d’Amore. Also in the works is a team project in preparation for the Hog Factor competition hosted by High END at LDI where we will compete as finalists. Each project brings new opportunities to explore and try something different.

One of the fun undertakings each year is The Rep where we fully produce three shows in our black box space. This involves a full staff of MFA designers for each show, three student directors, and plethora of both undergraduate and graduate actors. Throughout the process, the creative teams for each show will establish fantastic ideas specific to their show and needs. From there, the fun part starts as we juggle the various needs, hopes, and dreams between all three shows. For several months there will be a constant supply of debate, research, and rethinking as the teams collaborate individually and as a collective whole to create a successful final product for the three shows in rotating rep.

Pictured – In preparation for the Hog Factor finals at LDI, we have set up a studio where we can visualize the light show we are designing and programming. This show will be exhibited live in the High End booth at LDI in October 2016.