Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2011 - 8

letters to
the

editor

To the Editor:
I refer to the article by David K. Warfel "Going Back to the Future of Lighting Design" in the Summer 2011 issue of TD&T.
It contains at least one great inaccuracy, the statement in the second paragraph that reads "a genuine Lekolite, the original ellipsoidal
reflector spotlight."
I had the pleasure of correcting this identical misapprehension in LIVE DESIGN for May 2011, where I wrote in part, "Stanley McCandless,
famed for his teaching of theatre lighting at Yale University and at that time Director of Research for Century Lighting, wrote me, 'Kliegl made the
first ellipsoidal spotlight.'"
I urge Mr. Warfel to read the full text of that discussion.
Joel E. Rubin

To the Editor:
David Warfel illuminates in his article "Going Back to the Future of Lighting Design" what I call the Cirque-i-zation of our work, though others call
it "convergence." Perhaps our disciplines have merged and young people are learning to be entertainment technologists, not theatre technicians.
There is one item I quibble with in the article. Warfel includes in his equipment list an original Lekolite and describes it as the first ellipsoidal
reflector spotlight. He might be correct. Stanley McCandless did design and develop the Lekolite and named it for the founders of Century Lighting. But
a few months before McCandless' invention became available, Kliegl Bros. lighting company launched their venerable single lens ERS. The Leko quickly
became the more popular fixture family due more to a marketing faux pas than an engineering advantage. The story goes that Kliegl refused to rent its
fixtures to the Broadway houses and producers. Ed Kook at Century, however, never missed an opportunity to put McC's lights anywhere-sales, demo,
or rental.
A curious precursor to the ellipsoidal reflector luminaires of the 1930s in the U.S. may be a light fixture based on an 1890s patent. This fixture
was almost identical in appearance to the Kliegl fixture with the gray body and silver lamp housing. The one obvious difference is a two-piece clamp
to go around a much larger pipe than a stage batten. It clamped to the barrel of a long-range field artillery piece and was described by its inventor
as a "spotting light for artillery." And so, perhaps, the "spot" light in its modern, post-lime-light form was born.
Jeffrey Gress,
Faculty Designer, Capital University

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theatre design

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