Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2007 - 34

take his two remaining courses. Ironically, he
did not receive a passing grade in mechanical
drafting, but didn't know it, as he had to leave
school early to start his new position in Oregon.
A series of mishaps, which included a retired
professor and a retired department head with
no forwarding addresses, means Peterson is
still three credits short of his degree.
Peterson was originally hired by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to be a stage electrician. He began designing during his fourth
season. Needless to say, the lighting equipment
at the festival has changed quite a bit since Peterson first arrived. Then the Bowmer instrument inventory consisted mostly of 6"x9" lekos
while the larger Elizabethan had 8"x9" and
8"x11" units. Today, the three theatres' inventories include several hundred Source Fours,
Selecon Ellipsoidals and several Vari-lites and
Wybron Nexeras. The Festival also uses Pani and
video projectors. Earlier, the Elizabethan had
sixty dimmers controlled by a 60-channel twoscene preset board. In1978 the first computer,
a Kliegl Performance, was used to control the
lighting in the Bowmer. Today an ETC Obsession is used in conjunction with a PC (to control
moving lights) in all three theatres.
Peterson introduced moving lights to the
Festival in the late 1980s. The first were four
GAM Beamers, a mirror driven unit. Over the
past several years a variety of Vari-Lites have
been added to the Bowmer and Elizabethan
Theatres.
The desire to learn more about moving
lights was one of the reasons Peterson actually
resigned as resident designer for one year, in
1998. He had also become overwhelmed by the
demands of his own business and other projects. He felt he wasn't truly earning the title of
resident designer. He did light one production
that season, keeping his consecutive years intact. During his time off, he experimented more
with moving lights. He owned several different
units through his business, but had not used
very many at the Festival. "I really wanted to explore that world of creativity, what a moving light
could do." The knowledge he gained through
that experience and the projects he created
has made him very confident in using the moving lights at the Festival now. "I know how they
work. I know how they program. And I'm very
quick at it." Peterson also credits the Festival's
master electrician and automated lighting programmer, Michael Maag. He can describe an ef-

fect to Maag and go on to cuing needed for the
conventional lights. "Michael give me a pathway.
Get it about three feet wide. Overlap them this
far. Make sure they're centered...Boom he's on
it.... He's a whiz at it." A specific cue in 2006's
The Winter's Tale lit the entry of the readers of
the oracle in a sharp edged row of light running
down the center of the stage from mid-stage to
the front edge. Leontes and Hermione were just
left and right of the downstage end in soft pools
of light. Peterson chuckles when asked about
the cue. "How many lights does it take to do a
path? It always takes too many lights. Paths and
streets; my two biggest nemeses." He did use
a series of VL 1Ks to create the path. A direct
down light on the oracle created by a VL6 allowed Peterson to give that character a different
color temperature than the VL 1Ks which were
also used on Hermione and Leontes.
Since Peterson has been in Ashland, the
Festival has renovated the Elizabethan Theatre and
replaced the Black Swan with the New Theatre.
Peterson was instrumental in the design of the
lighting positions in both spaces. The Allen Pavilion, which opened in 1992, is a wrap-around
structure, which gives an acoustical shell to the
outdoor theatre which features the classic threestory Elizabethan facade. The design allowed
Peterson to create optimum lighting positions
for the stage. Imagine the opportunity to look at
a performance space and be able to place lighting positions where they are needed, not just
where they have to go. Richard Hay, OSF's principle theatre and scenic designer told Peterson
to put the lights in space and the pavilion would
be designed around them. "The side towers are
higher...so I can side-light across the stage and
light somebody on the far side of the stage and
have a shutter cut off the front row."
The New Theatre opened in 2001. It is a
flexible space in which the Festival produces its
more intimate productions. "The biggest question was how many catwalks we were going to
have. There were designs for four catwalks.
There were designs for five catwalks. We ended
up with six catwalks.... In a five catwalk system your middle catwalk is dead center over the
stage which the most important lighting position
in theatre in the round, in three quarter thrust.
Dead center in that building is the most important lighting position. You have a catwalk over
it, you can't hang a light there. So we went to an
even [number of] catwalks so you can actually
hang lights off both sides."

Because of the repertory schedule in each
theatre, Peterson, as resident designer, designs
a rep plot for each space, Ironically, he didn't always do this. " I was always a proponent, in the
past, of the person who did the most shows in
each theatre would do the rep plot. A lot of the
designers who came in here said, 'you should
do it. You're the guy who knows the space better
than anyone.'"
Each plot consists of very carefully calculated washes. "Bob is a complete stickler for
geometry. He's all about letting the other designers know that when they come in they can
expect the light that hits area B from side left
and from side right to fall off the exact same
amount," explains Maag. Most of the plots
contain one front light system, two to four side
light systems and two back light systems. Systems are focused to either sharp to shutter or
sharp to gobo.
The New Theatre presents the most difficult challenge. Peterson wants to insure that the
actors are lit without lighting the audience. He's
very careful in planning the angles used lighting
the space Last year there were three different
staging configurations. Considering it is an intimate space, there are a lot of lighting instruments in the New Theatre. According to Maag,
by using almost the full range of the pipe's circumference, parts of some electrics are hung
on two-inch centers.
Peterson still hand-draws his light plots.
He gives two main reasons. The first is length of
time spent staring at the drafting table or computer screen. He can spend all day working on
a plot on the table, but just a few hours at a time
in front of a computer. "I just can't go over four
hours. My eyes are just too tired." The other
reason is that the drafting time is his creation
time and he needs to see the whole picture at
once. His meticulous use of geometry in beam
spreads and angles adds to that need to be able
to see the whole design at once. He works for
long periods of time in an office separated from
his house, with no phone.
As resident designer, Peterson has a handsoff approach to the other lighting designers who
work at the Festival. He usually meets with them
as an introduction. Sometimes he has been
asked to get involved if there are any questions
or problems. This will more likely occur when
the designer is less familiar with moving lights.
But he does not sit in the back of the house and
second-guess the other designers. He will, after
THEATRE

SPRING

2007

DESIGN

TECHNOLOGY

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2007