Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1991 - 69

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Lighting Design Handbook

architectural lighting are really there
because the author assures us that "almost
all
professional lighting designers do some
458 pages; 352 illustrations (full color and black and white);
work in (this) area" and that "more than
11" x 8-1/2"; lcGraw-HilL Publication: June. 1990. ISBN
half the best known 'names' in
0-07-068481-2 $69.50
architectural lighting started out in the
theatre."
Lighting Design Handbook
This section is thus
by Lee Watson is the
more concerned with
discoursive result of rhe
author's lifetime study and
telling us which theBOOK REVIEWS
atrical lighting specialists
practice in the field of
found work in the
lighting. The book was
various architectural
originally conceived as
ligh ting specialties; the
one part of a work that
commenced on the collection of real data
publisher's claim that the reference "offers
would have also included the author's
and
continuously studied and
detailed information on lighting for
study of the history of theatre lighting,
documented the growth of the theatrical
building interiors and landscape
documentation on lighting controls and
architecrure" is only partially validated by
ligh ting profession.
instrumentation and biographical
Everywhere Watson turned. theatrical
Warson's extensive bibliographical
sketches of hundreds of lighting
annotations.
lighting designers were doing other things
practitioners. Watson had, in fact, very
If we turn now to those sections of the
in lighting, capturing the principles of
nearly drafted most of the complete
lighting design in the theatre for use in all
book which are broadly theatrically
manuscript before his untimely death.
oriented, we start with a section "On
of the various entertainment venues as
The editors at McGraw-Hill have
Being a Creative Artisr." This is not
chosen to deal with the "design" aspects of well as in engineering applications and
Watson's best chapter. The material moves
Watson's research in the present volume
interior and exterior architectural lighting.
too rapidly from "concepts" to the
He soon began to argue that if the
and in that sense the book is complete in
"planning stage" and quickly becomes
principles of design were understood.
itself. evertheless, Watson's researches,
enveloped in "focus charts" and "magic
then the practioner need not be limited to
particularly in stage lighting history and
its practitioners, would be interesting any single aspect of the lighting sheets." In terms of the overall textual
marrer, I think one must still recommend
reading in themselves; Watson was a great
profession.
Robert Edmond Jones's lean, unequalled
This work culminared in the two
compiler of lighting history and in his
sections on practitioners he was quite
conferences on "Training of Lighting and inspired treaunent of this subject in
Designers" (TOLD) which Watson
Chapter VI of The Dramatic Imagination.
capable of introducing controversy into
(Jones is not included in Watson's
shepherded and chaired in 1981 and
his biographical annotations.
otherwise extensive bibliography in this
1983 and which brought together
Watson was more than a teacher and
industry leaders from the major
chapter.)
practitioner of lighting. He was an
The next major chapter is tided "On
assiduous collector of printed and
professional societies and lighting
ephmeral material on the subject and an
disciplines. Preaching the interrelation of Being a Master Technician." Given the
author's intent that this section is a
the lighting disciplines became, in fact,
inexhaustible searcher and compiler. As
"supplement to extant technical texts" I
the capstone of Watson's lifetime work
John Gleason tells us in the foreword to
this book, Watson's lifetime passion was
and it is the premise upon which the
am glad not to have pages and pages of
discourse on the nuances of the various
Lighting Design Handbook is based.
lighting. He had "a passion to
It is no discredit to the author that his
lighting control memory systems
communicate his knowledge and
firsthand knowledge of lighting in the
although I find it disconcerting not to
excitement about the almost unending
have any discussion of the basic principles
theatre and entertainment industry was
fields oflighting design."
of their use in the creative process.
I was the co-author with Watson of an
far more extensive than when he was
One will find here information abour
earlier work published in 1954, the
dealing with architectural venues. The 80lasers, fiber optics, holograms and
serious intents of which were to write
odd pages in the book dealing with
compurers each accompabout many aspects of
anied by Watson's bibliolighting design in the
graphical commentaries
theatre previously untreatWILLIAM Z UCCHERO, EDITOR
on the literature he
ed and to prove that there
compiled. Buried in the
was an established and
subtext. these bibliogrowing profession (to
by Lee Warson

give ourselves some confidence as we
embarked upon careers in the field). In
rhat earlier work we sometimes made
uneducated guesses and simple surmises
about employment and career
opportunities; Warson, thereafter,

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TD&T

1991 WINTER

67
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1991
