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How Much Can I Make? - Discover Your Dream Job.
A Lighting Designer's Journey - From small stage to Tony Awards:
Lighting Designer
Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes to create the magical atmosphere of a Broadway show? Four-time Tony Award winner Kevin Adams pulls back the curtain on the fascinating world of theatrical lighting design in this illuminating conversation about his unexpected career journey. The most eye-opening revelation comes when Adams explains how Broadway designers actually make their (big) money.
Picture: from "Spring Awakening" - Lighting design by Kavin Adams
Topics
1:47 From Performer to Lighting Designer
3:52 Discovering Light as an Art Form
8:54 Creating Special Effects for Broadway
12:36 How Broadway Payment Systems Work
17:45 Technology Revolution in Theater Lighting
23:45 Tony Awards and Career Highlights
26:48 Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Resources
https://tisch.nyu.edu/design/course-offerings/lighting-design
https://calarts.edu/academics/programs-and-degrees/mfa-lighting-design
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Music credit: Kate Pierson & Monica Nation
If you design a Broadway show, you get a weekly royalty, and if the show does really well, that's where you make some money. But then hold on, it gets better.
Speaker 2:And it gets better indeed. Hi, and welcome back to how Much Can I Make? I'm Erav Ozeri, a curious journalist that always wants to know what people do for a living and how much they can earn. This week, we're stepping into the spotlight, literally with one of the masters behind the magic of lighting. Our guest is a four-time Tony Award winner, kevin Adams. He's a lighting designer whose work has illuminated Broadway, las Vegas opera and many other productions. So let's find out from Kevin what does it take to become an award-winning lighting designer? So, kevin, first of all, thank you so much for willing to do that. Nice to be here today.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Let's start by telling us how did you get into lighting design?
Speaker 1:I really wanted to be a performer. Like lots of young performers, I would do little puppet shows In high school. I was in plays and musicals. After a really bad audition for the Diary of Anne Frank, I had a high school teacher who very gently guided me into set design. He suggested I might want to be the set designer for the Diary of Anne Frank. I remember thinking like what's that? And he explained it and then I just like I just took to that so quickly.
Speaker 1:And then I went to the University of Texas in Austin and got a BFA in set design, never studied lighting, had no interest in lighting, didn't notice the lighting. I was just like really ambitious and dedicated to set design. And then I went to California Institute of the Arts and I went there to study more set design. But they also taught production design for film. Mtv premiered in late 1981 and in 84 it was still round the clock. You know music shorts, which was like thrilling at the time and I thought like, oh, this is something I want to be a part of. So I studied production design for film.
Speaker 1:Didn't study lighting, had zero interest in lighting it was a two year program at an art school that costs so little at the time and moved into Hollywood. I worked in film a lot. I was a dresser, props dresser, set dresser, which I really loved Built scenery. I was an art director. I was a production designer. I worked on lots of like high-end commercials, like Bose speakers and Apple, and lots of beer like Budweiser and Budweiser Light, and then, because there's still lighting to come- Right, because you said you were totally not interested in lighting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I saw the work of fine artists that use light in their work at various museums. I saw that work a lot new work and old work and I saw that I could design a space around these things that I found in hardware stores light bulbs and fluorescent tubes that could make light and turn on and off very quickly and make a new space. And I started lighting my own little sets and immediately the phone started ringing with these really well-known. You know, in the late 80s and early 90s there was a huge performance art scene in this country. Well, rachel Rosenthal, this really interesting lady, called me that she had been performing. She was an older lady who shaved her head and I started working with her, lighting her shows, and eventually we had five different shows that we would do and john fleck was one of the nea four and he was my first la boyfriend.
Speaker 1:I started lighting his work and doing little sets for him and then, like well-known directors would call me, but all these people would say the same thing. They'd say, hey, I saw that show you did. That's how I see my work. Do you want to come light my work? And I'd say, like I am not a lighting designer at all, like I did. I did that little show or two and I'm a trained set designer, I know how to make shows and but I don't know anything about lighting. And they all said you know what, that's okay, come try this, and if it works, that's great, and if it doesn't, it's no big deal. Which was like really hard to say no to, you know, because these people were like making really interesting work and they were all really well-known. So I just started lighting little shows and each show got bigger so I was learning about theatrical lighting at the same time.
Speaker 2:Do you prefer working on live shows or film?
Speaker 1:Once I became a lighting designer, I lit a music video when I lived in LA and that was shot on film. It was a Janet Jackson music video. I lived in LA and that was shot on film this Janet Jackson music video but that was for film and I did not understand how film captured light at all. I had a lot of help from the DP and the director. Now that film is digital or cameras are digital and the cameras mostly see what the eye sees.
Speaker 1:I've lit some things in the last few years, like I lit part of that mildred pierce on hbo. Really, yeah, I lit there's a whole concert thing in the middle of it that I spent a lot of time on it's minutes of the film but I spent two months on it. That was digital and so what you see with your eyes, kind of what the camera sees, and you can have a monitor that with your eyes, kind of what the camera sees, and you can have a monitor. That's very similar to what's exactly what the camera's going to see. That's much easier to light and balance and that I could understand. I like that no reviewer is going to come to it and review it and I like that we don't go through that process that we go through in New York City with theater which is, but I assume, assume, when the lighting is right, the reviewers will not even notice anything.
Speaker 2:It's only yeah.
Speaker 1:I think I've been mentioned in reviews, like I mean maybe 10 times I mean shows that I've won Tony's for, like they don't even mention the lighting. It's just like no, they just don't talk about they don't people know how to talk about it. They don't recognize it, they don't see it. They don't talk about it. They don't recognize it, they don't see it.
Speaker 2:They don't see it, I know. So let's say, a director or a producer comes to you a Broadway show. After four Tonys, I'm sure a lot of them come to you Somewhat. Yes, so they come to you with a play. First of all, do you have to live the play that you work on.
Speaker 1:Do I have to like it? Yeah, you know, when you light a show, a musical, you have to hear those songs a lot like over and over and over and over and over. If I don't like the music or if I don't get the music, I would say no.
Speaker 2:Once you design the lighting, do you have to be there for every show?
Speaker 1:No, you're pretty much off the case. Like once a show opens, you're done because they can't afford to have programmers and they have to pay everyone to work more. So do you. That plan is not to pay anyone do you automate the lighting?
Speaker 2:yeah?
Speaker 1:yeah, so uh, there's a programmer, which that is a great field to get into. There's a huge console we call it which is a computer. It gets more complicated every year and there's a person I talk to and they program the lighting into that console and then come opening night, that person's moved on to another job. I've moved on, my assistants moved on, my associates moved on, and then there's a group of people in the theater who maintain the show and there's one guy who presses. You just press go. The stage manager calls a cue like q1 go, q2 go, q3 go.
Speaker 1:So it's like that the producer would come to you and offer you the job or director uh, all kinds of people uh, it's usually a director will call me and say, hey, I'm doing this thing and I'll be like I'll find out who else is working on it and send me the script so I'll read it and listen to it. Sometimes it's an unfinished script. Sometimes, if it's an opera and it's new, you get nothing other than like a topic because it doesn't exist yet. For an opera uh, for musical. Sometimes there's a recording of like a workshop so you get the recording.
Speaker 2:What do you do? You start drawing what you're gonna do?
Speaker 1:I just listen to it. I just sit and listen to it.
Speaker 2:You get the atmosphere. I mean, what inspires you? Usually just let.
Speaker 1:What is the story? What? What's the music like? What kind of music is it? I do a lot of shows with electric guitars. I do a lot of like rock pop shows. I mean, everyone does now, but I had done, I have done a lot of like rock theater shows.
Speaker 2:Do you do special effects in those, like special effects with light?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, just smoke. Lots of smoke effects, lightning effects, fire effects, like flame in a barrel and like what else Lightning, you know? Like flame in a barrel and like what else Lightning, you know? Rain, things like that. For Swept Away that I just did on Broadway, I hung 30 industrial-sized carpet dryer fans around the theater, why there was a huge storm in the show and so we had wind blowing through the entire theater. It was really neat.
Speaker 2:That's part of your job. I would think that's part of your job.
Speaker 1:I would think that's part of the set designer no, that it's a, it's an effect, it's a special effect that I knew how to do. We had rain in the show too, but that I didn't know how to do and we had, I think scenery kind of took care of that so when you did 30 fans, that must have been very noisy, no it was, but it's a really loud storm and the storm covered it up.
Speaker 1:But yeah, when you turned it on it sounded like you were in a huge HVAC system. I mean, it was quite a loud rumble.
Speaker 2:Right, but you didn't hear it when the storm ran.
Speaker 1:It was really amazing, but you'd feel it and it would stop and start and stop and start and the whole theater felt it.
Speaker 2:It was really neat stop and start and the whole theater felt it was really neat. Wow, that's an experience for an audience. I'm sure that's pretty cool. Yeah, wind, did you ever work with a diva, either in opera or film or theater, that complained about the lighting? She doesn't want wrinkles to show, or something.
Speaker 1:No, I mean you. We are, we are obligated to especially take care of the women and make sure they look good, and especially the older women. They want to look good, but you also, like I, go up and talk to them often and tell them how good they look and you're looking great, and they want to know that you're taking care of them understandably. And those, those women who are like solid show women, like patty lapone and honor mcdonald they're like not divas at all, they're amazing. They want to look good and if they didn't, they would tell you. But you take care of them and they're amazing women. I worked with Faye Dunaway not long ago and that was, that was an absolute trip. Why? Well, she's by far the most complicated person I've ever worked with, but also was like fascinating, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 1:Everything I was hoping it would be.
Speaker 2:She was amazing. Who was the greatest to work with from all the women?
Speaker 1:Oh, patti's amazing. I did a lot of things with Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald. They're all just like show folk. Those are all just like Patti's like a Jersey mom. I mean, those are all just like show folk. Those are all just like patty's like a jersey mom. I mean, those are all just like show folk. You know, they're great. They show up early to work every day and they work hard and when all the kids like leave on breaks or lunch, they're like still working and they'll stay after and work and those are really really hard working smart people and I love they're, you know, and they're show folk. They're funny and weird and neurotic and you know everything that show folks are and from the guys who was the most difficult to work with.
Speaker 2:Difficult, oh pleasure I can't.
Speaker 1:There were some like super lazy tenors who were just like coasting through the show. They're just handsome guys who kind of coast.
Speaker 2:We talked before that you don't know really about pay, because after four Tonys and eight nominations right, that's correct. This is crazy, kevin. It's crazy. So you're on a total different echelon. But if somebody starts, yes, can you give us an idea? What can they make?
Speaker 1:I have no idea. You know I'm in a union. We have minimums for designers on shows. I don't make minimum.
Speaker 2:Do you know what the minimum is? Any idea?
Speaker 1:Well, it's plays and musicals are different. A Broadway musical there's phases, there's like a musical with one set, then there's a musical with two sets. There's all these different categories. I think it's like 12 or 16 or 17 or 18 000 for a show, for a week for a show. For a show not for a week, uh, then you get paid. If you design a broadway show, you get a weekly royalty. If a show does well, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:weekly royalty? Wait, I never heard about that.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's how we make money. If a show runs, like the Lion King or Book of Mormon or so many other shows that aren't my shows, if a show runs, every week that it runs, you get paid. And then you get paid a minimum which in the last few years is like $500 or $750 or $1,000 a week, and then on top of that there's cycles of royalties. So every four weeks they count up the box office, they deduct the cost of running the show, then they divide what's left up. Everyone has a percentage based on their contract the writers, the, the director, the choreographer, the designers, the actors.
Speaker 2:It's the creative side, what they call but wait, I need to understand this because I never heard about it before? Yes so let's say you work on the lion king you design the lighting.
Speaker 1:Let's say that.
Speaker 2:Okay, yes and you designed everything. Everything is now basically on half automated. Maybe you have somebody that pushed.
Speaker 1:You still get the royalties. You still get the royalties, but then, hold on, it gets better. So then your production of the lion king is running in new york and then it's running in la and many other places correct. It tours around the us and the world. One or two tours it's running in dubai and south africa and fucking shanghai, it's all over the world. Yeah, yeah, and you get paid for all of those oh, wow indeed, that's a great job.
Speaker 1:Indeed not many. There aren't many designers on broadway and there certainly aren't many people that have shows that run like that. But, yes, that's where you can make some money, like. I have two tours out now that from shows I did on Broadway that are selling really, really, really well and you make a lot of money. Wow, yeah yeah, that's a sweet thing, correct.
Speaker 2:So whoever worked on the Phantom of the Opera didn't have to work again.
Speaker 1:She died. But correct, she was found dead in her tub.
Speaker 2:but yes, Really, oh my God, I feel guilty for laughing, no, no, no no, no, the set designer.
Speaker 1:I mean you know people die and that show was a long time ago. But yeah, I mean yes, yes, yeah, yeah, I mean they made that was a show from the 80s. So they, like people make so much more now because of current contracts. But yeah, those people made a lot of money. They were making that was an 80s contract, so they were making not near what people make now yeah, but they made it for 30 some years, yeah oh, totally.
Speaker 1:And that show ran everywhere and toured everywhere right every day, every week, you get a check from all those Wow In Didi, it's great, okay, which. If you do a show in Vegas most shows in Vegas that you design they don't have royalties, they just pay you one big lump sum. Some shows will give royalties, weekly royalties, but a lot of shows will just pay you a chunk of money and then you open the show and you're done. I mean, a fee could be 50 000 or 60 or 80 or you know something like that.
Speaker 2:Wow yeah, it doesn't take that long to design a show.
Speaker 1:Right to design lighting for a show I spend about a year in pre-production on the show. I mean, that's not every day but if we start a show out of town, I start usually a year before that we start in meetings, lots of meetings. Then the set is designed, then we do the plot. So you know, that's like four hours here, four hours there, four hours you know it's not every day.
Speaker 2:A year that's a lot of work correct and you're on the job.
Speaker 1:You're doing other shows also, then rehearsals like four or five weeks. I myself this, most people don't do this but I go to like three weeks of that rehearsal. Then you're in the theater for uh tech. So, like in tech, uh come in at 10, work 10 to 12 and we start rehearsal and stage at one and then we'll go to like a shorter day is like one to nine, but sometimes we'll go to one to ten or 1 to 10 30. So I'm there like maybe 8 in the morning till 10, 30 at night. Wow, but I have a lot of work to do and I you know I have a lot to do.
Speaker 2:So do you actually hang the lights too, or you have people? Are you kidding?
Speaker 1:no, I don't, wouldn't, I've never touched, I wouldn't know how to do that.
Speaker 2:No, there are people who do that for a living so you just give orders, put this light there, put we draw it all out.
Speaker 1:And then my associate draws it all out. There's a production electrician. The show hires a production electrician. He's like the head electrician. He takes the drawings, he figures it all out like where everything's going to run. He oversees the hanging, the installation of the plot. Because when you do a Broadway show you're renting a completely empty theater. There's nothing in a theater no lights, no rig, nothing. There's no lights, there's no Wi-Fi, there's no air conditioners. There's a whole wardrobe department that needs washers and dryers and steamers and hangers and shelves. There is nothing. They bring everything for production. Correct, it is an empty box. I mean you might have like an AC unit in a window here and there for a dressing room and there might be some chairs in a dressing room and that's it. It is an empty building. So we each department gets all this stuff and installs it all and that's part of like the load in and the.
Speaker 2:So you're installing like a complete business in a in a theater so part of your job is to order all the different lights that you're going to need for the show yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So my associate makes a shop order with the production electrician because every this all comes out of a shop that they bid on, and then there's a weekly rental cost okay and every single cable screw piece of gel gel holder.
Speaker 1:Everything you would ever need is in that shop order. I don't understand what most of it means, because it's like monitors and monitors and all kinds of cable and I mean it's just like pipe and ladders and genie lifts and you get an empty box of a building that you have to put a show up in that's so crazy.
Speaker 2:I thought that they give it to you with the lights and you just change them around.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, because those lights, well, every show is different, every set's different, so you need lights in different places. But also, now, lighting is like if you went into a theater, you would want to update all that stuff. You know now, like moving lights are changing so quickly, so we get whatever's on the shelves that's probably newer and install it all, and the lights aren't going to hang at the same place every time. Yeah, but anyway, to answer your question, I don't hang the lights. There are, then, electricians that are hired by the show and maybe whoever owns the theater I haven't quite figured this out and they hang the lights and I go in and watch occasionally and point.
Speaker 1:I'm not allowed to touch anything.
Speaker 2:Oh, because it's a different union, of course it is, but also they take pride in me not needing to touch things, but like on a film.
Speaker 1:It's definitely like don't touch that. Like it's, that's definitely union, divided labor of who touches what.
Speaker 2:So yes, do you find that it helped you that you worked at your earlier life before you got into lighting? You work in sets. You worked in that. Do you feel that it helps you that you worked at your earlier life before you got into lighting? You work in sets. You worked in that. Do you feel that that helped you in your profession at the moment?
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, because a lot of what I. There's two kinds of lighting to me. There's the kinds of lighting where the lights are visible, there's no masking, and the overhead lights are visible and the side lights are visible. Or I have things more inside the space that are visible and the side lights are visible, or I have things more inside the space that are visible. Those things are really informed by my work as a set designer how they occupy the space and how they frame the space and all this stuff, uh. Second kind of lighting is the lights are not seen because they're all behind masking and borders.
Speaker 1:Right, that's more just like traditional theater lighting right like, I think, most of the things I did at the Metropolitan Opera, the lighting was hidden. Half the things I do on Broadway I did a lot of shows where the lighting was visible, like American Idiot and Spring Awakening, but about half the shows I do now the lighting's not visible.
Speaker 2:We mentioned before, before we started to record how technology changed over the years, can you give us a little taste of what it's like now, compared to what it was?
Speaker 1:Yeah, on the planet Earth.
Speaker 2:No, you're not on Mars yet.
Speaker 1:We have just gone through, in the last 16, 17, 18 years, we've gone through this transition of this energy efficiency transition To LED, to LED In your homes, the deli, the big box store, in the theater, in the theater. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. That happened all in just 14 or 15 or 16 years.
Speaker 2:But can you have like a direction light with an LED? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean it was quite crude. I think the first LEDs were used on Broadway, like in the early 2000s, mostly just to light backgrounds, right, because they were. I can see that. Yeah, like Spring Awakening, I had these huge walls and they were lit with LED Next to normal. I had a background that was lit with LED led and then eventually the color improved and the direction the thing you're talking about and you could light humans with led. Like for spongebob, the musical, I didn't have much gel at all and it was the people, the backgrounds and the scenery and the people were lit with led.
Speaker 1:Often there's no heat buildup. You would get on a set that's tight and that heat just builds up, right, especially like behind, and now it doesn't and it's great and you don't change color as much because color is not burning or it's LED. It's like making the color. I did three musicals on Broadway that used a huge amount of fluorescent light Spring Awakening, next to Normal and Passing Strange. Each used a tremendous amount of fluorescent tubes and fluorescent light bulbs and none of that stuff exists anymore. The cool thing about LED is it comes in all these different shapes and gadgets and doodads and sizes, so there's a huge amount of lighting instruments we can choose from, but they're LED and the colors have gotten quite nice. You can light humans now. It is changing so quickly, the lighting industry.
Speaker 2:How do you keep up with the changes? How do you know?
Speaker 1:now I have young associates who know what's going on.
Speaker 2:You read about it all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they go see. They work on lots of different things and they know what the shop has and they know they're like, oh, you might really like this, or there's this new light that's come out with no fan, it's really quiet and you might like it.
Speaker 2:and they know okay, I have to ask you about all the tony's that you want yes first of all, I want to know about the first one. When you got the phone call, what did you feel?
Speaker 1:you get nominated, so you get a call in the morning. Usually my agent calls me and says hello, how are you this morning? And I'll say oh, what's going on? I'm just lying here in bed. Is something happening? We have this old game we play. Then it used to be four weeks between the time you're nominated and the Tony Awards.
Speaker 1:Now it's five weeks, so that's torture. And then the awards are in June. It's hot and you have to get dressed up. That part's a pain, like what are you going to wear? It's hot. It's a long, long, long, long, long, long day and night. But the biggest thing is preparing a speech. Like, oh my God, I have to get up in front of the entire world at Radio City Music Hall and say something. So I'll like practice and practice and practice and practice and practice. That that's the scariest thing. Then, once you get through that, it's a different night.
Speaker 2:So you were nominated eight times and won four times. Correct, so the four times that you lost were you highly disappointed.
Speaker 1:No, the first time I didn't win. I was nominated twice that year and I knew that. Which shows were there? Hair and Next to Normal, and I had won the year before. I'd won two years before. So you know, I didn't have any complaints and to be nominated twice was amazing. Yes, but it's really hard to win. And also I knew that Billy Elliot would win. Someone had told me like, if you know you're not going to win when you go, it's a much funner night. And boy, is that true? Oh, really, yeah, because you can wear relaxed shoes, you can just enjoy the night. And that four or five weeks of torture between the time you're nominated and the night there's less torture.
Speaker 2:How come you knew you're not going to win?
Speaker 1:Like I could tell you months ago what's gonna win this year. You said sunset boulevard. You think will win this year. Yeah, probably, I knew that like the day they open, they're probably gonna win it. I interviewed the makeup person for that and the wig maker yeah no, that would probably win the lighting for lighting this year, the winning nights. I just it's a long night and I end up just like on the sofa, sleeping like. Just like it's so tense. It's a lot to go through.
Speaker 2:And you make a lot more money after you win, right, I mean, your career just takes off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in theory I mean Spring Awakening like really moved me to a different category of designer and that included more money. But partly that was because that show really I was like 40 something and that show really showed off my ideas I had been working on for years really clearly. So I had really good ideas that were presented in a really good show, that were really on the radar, and so it was not only that I got a Tony, but it was like that I did some excellent work that really shined. All that together kind of made like a career life change.
Speaker 2:Is there one show or performance that you worked on that excited you the most, that you're proud of the most?
Speaker 1:I worked on Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Speaker 2:Many, many, many times, which was a fantastic show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we started. I worked in the first off-Broadway production in 97, I think we did that at the Westbeth, which is not even there anymore. We opened at the Jane Street Theater on February 14th 1998, and ran for two and a half years. I designed Hedwig in several cities. We couldn't give the tickets away. No one wanted to come see a rock and roll drag queen. No one knew what that was, or no one cared what that was, and then I did it on Broadway in 2014.
Speaker 2:And that's when you got the.
Speaker 1:Tony, I did, I did, but I always loved working on that show because I just love the songs. By the time we got to 2014, people knew the show, People knew the songs. Like I said, in the 90s we couldn't give those tickets away because the movie came out and all this stuff and people were just. It was sold out every night and they brought this amazing energy in and they couldn't wait to be in this room with Hedwig and it was so thrilling. You know, they were just. They were so open to it and excited by it and yeah that's neat, excellent, that part's great.
Speaker 1:All and yeah, that's neat, excellent, that part's great, all right, and on that, note.
Speaker 2:Thank you, yes, so much for doing it so interesting. Yeah, yeah, I, the royalty thing really. Wow, I didn't know about it. That's how we now.
Speaker 1:I wish I was alive. I know that's how we make a lot of money okay, that's a wrap for today.
Speaker 2:If you have a comment or question or would like us to cover a certain job, please let us know. Visit our website at howmuchcanimakeinfo. We would love to hear from you. And, on your way out, don't forget to subscribe and share this episode with anyone who is curious about their next job. See you next time.
