LibGuides: Stage Lighting: Finding Books

Introduction

This page collects a selection of the Library's books on stage lighting and theatrical design, but it is only a small sample of what's available to you!

To do some searching on your own, explore the library catalog. Conducting a keyword search in the library catalog is always a great place to start. Use the "Material Type" filter on the right of the "Advanced Search" screen to limit your results to "Books."

After finding a relevant book in the catalog, use the topics (listed in the subject field of the record) to find related materials. At this point, if you've identified several promising materials that have the same subjects listed, consider clicking on any of the subject headings to launch a new search for similarly classified items.

You can also check out the instructions and suggestions in the Tips for Exploring the Collection box on the first page of this guide for suggested search terms.

Once you find an item you're interested in, check to see what other materials are shelved near it to find related books on similar topics!

Selected Books from the Catalog

Stage Lighting: The Fundamentals (2nd edition) by Richard E. Dunham
Call Number: MPAL PN2091.E4 D87 2019
This book is written specifically for introductory stage lighting courses. The book begins with an examination of the nature of light, perception, and color, then leads into a conversation of stage lighting equipment and technicians. Lamps, luminaries, controls/dimming, and electricity form the basis of these chapters.
Stage Lighting: Design Applications and More by Richard E. Dunham
Call Number: MPAL PN2091.E4 D86 2019
This book builds on Stage Lighting: The Fundamentals to provide an in-depth reference to a number of specialty areas of lighting design, from traditional applications such as drama, dance, and designing for different venues, to more advanced applications such as concert, corporate, film and video, virtual, and other forms of entertainment lighting.
Designing with Light (7th edition) by Michael Gillette; Michael McNamara
Call Number: MPAL PN2091.E4 G5 2020
Designing with Light introduces readers to the art, craft, and technology of stage lighting and media projection. The new edition is fully updated to include current information on the technology of stage lighting: lighting fixtures, lamps, cabling, dimmers, control boards, as well as electrical theory.
Performance Lighting Design by Nick Moran
Call Number: MPAL PN2091.E4 M65 2019
A practical guide to the art and technique of lighting for the stage, this book explains the complex mixture of craft, collaboration and creativity behind successful lighting design.
Discovering Stage Lighting by Francis Reid
Call Number: Online Resource
This guide to the fundamentals of stage lighting includes a series of projects to allow experimentation, discussion and analysis. The necessary equipment is described in relation to its purpose, along with checklists and hints for practical use. The core of this book is a series of 'discovery' projects using minimal resources, to explore the use of light in the theatre, with particular emphasis on the interaction of conflicting visual aims.

Starting Your Career As a Theatrical Designer by Michael J. Riha; Michael Mayer (Foreword by)
Call Number: MPAL PN2091.S8 R475S7 2012
Ten award-winning and current Broadway designers--five set designers, four lighting designers, and one projection designer--discuss the business aspects of the theatre world, sharing relevant insider information and strategies that will prove invaluable to aspiring and seasoned theatrical designers alike.
The Heart of Light by Deanna Fitzgerald; Mandy Wagner (Illustrator)
Call Number: Online Resource
Full of practical information, historic perspectives, engaging projects, and opportunities for deep inquiry, practice, and reflection, this book offers a well-rounded foundation in the industry of lighting design and covers strategies for keeping up with its rapid innovation, how to choose a career path that keeps you inspired, as well as ways to search for work with dos and don'ts of effective career building.
The Right Light: interviews with contemporary lighting designers by Nick Moran
Call Number: MPAL PN2091.E4 M65 2017
Publication Date: 2016-10-07
Based on a series of interviews with some of the UK's leading theatre lighting designers, this book provides an insight into the creative process of lighting the stage. How do lighting designers decide what is the 'right light' for each moment of a production? What informs their choices? How do these decisions differ from opera to dance to drama?

The Art of Light on Stage by Yaron Abulafia
Call Number: MPAL PN2091.E4 A28A7 2016
The Art of Light on Stage is the first history of theatre lighting design to bring the story right up to date. In this extraordinary volume, award-winning designer Yaron Abulafia explores the poetics of light, charting the evolution of lighting design against the background of contemporary performance.
Stage lighting design in Britain : the emergence of the lighting designer, 1881-1950 by Nigel Morgan
Call Number: MPAL PN2091.E4 M66S8 2005
This book explores the practitioners, equipment, installations, techniques and procedures that led to lighting design being clearly established as an essential component of performance, and it charts the role of lighting in shaping performance styles and the visual aesthetic of theatre.
The Speed of Light by Linda Essig
Call Number: MPAL 792.025 Es77s
Lighting design has undergone a series of radical changes. With the advent of computerized lighting control, automated lights, and a standard control protocol, lighting designers have acquired a set of tremendously powerful tools that allow effects never previously possible. Linda Essig has interviewed twenty luminaries of lighting design and engineering about these changes and how they have affected the art, science, and business of contemporary theatre.
Light by Scott Palmer
Call Number: MPAL PN2091.E4 P35L5 2013
This collection explores the creative potential of light in the theatre. Through a wide range of extracts from historical accounts, new research and rare documents, some presented for the first time in English, Scott Palmer provides new ways of thinking about lighting as a creative performance practice.