Nicholas Ryan

The Glass Menagerie

Gettysburg Community Theatre
Mar. 8-17, 2024
Director: Karen Land
Scenic Design: Karen Land & Michael Connelly
Lighting Design: Nicholas Ryan
Sound Design: Joshua Rikas

I served as the lighting designer for this production. This production leaned heavily into the memory play style that script calls for. Each character had their own color association when they were in their own world. Laura was blue, Amanda was amber/orange, and Tom was red. There was an opening montage under Tom’s monologue as each are isolated in their color and world. The PAR fixtures worked well to create their dim apartment. I supplemented that wash with some cool white from the SlimPARs to get a bit more intensity. For the night scenes, I would use the SlimPARs to represent the night from the stage left. I decided to establish a window there due to the balcony’s location on that side.

The scene where the power goes out used only very little blue light while there are not sources of light in the world of the play. Since it is such an intimate venue with only 80 seats, I was able to use even less light than I would normally be able to do. While the candles were lit, I shifted the SlimPARs to an amber. to give a bit more light. When Jim came down center with the candles to Laura, I shifted to primarily the strip light there as a footlight. Its position allowed enhancement of the candlelight.

At the end of the candle scene, Jim and Laura dance. The director, sound designer, and I wanted to break the more realistic style of that scene back into the more memory play style. The result was a dream sequence for the dance than broke Laura’s reality as the record scratched, resulting in Jim’s fall and the breaking of the unicorn.

The strip lights I used as footlights would not retain their DMX address after power cycling, so I detailed instructions for the board operator to set and check the DMX address. I had to work to convince the theatre’s artistic director to be able to use them since he does not like deviating from the standard plot.