BA (Hons) Theatre Practice > Theatre Lighting Design

The course will train you to be a Theatre Lighting Designer with the practical skills required to rig, focus and maintain lighting equipment, as well as the skills necessary to help you make aesthetic and technical choices.

From the first term of Year One you will begin to explore and develop your abilities as a designer, using some of the latest equipment available. At the same time, your preconceptions of what both theatre and lighting design are will be challenged, and your ability to work as part of a collaborative, multi-disciplinary creative team will be tested and enhanced.

Throughout Year Two you will develop your skills further on an exciting range of realised productions, working closely with fellow students on other Theatre Practice strands and on other courses, as well as with visiting professionals. Working collaboratively in this way will develop your ability to communicate, negotiate and solve problems in a team environment. Over the course of the year you will participate in a number of workshops that include design for media on stage, working at height and working with electricity. By the end of Year Two, you will have proved that you are competent to plan, rig, focus, and plot lighting for other designers as well as for your own designs.

In Year Three you will take full advantage of Central’s excellent links to all areas of the lighting industry and leading international designers. You will have the opportunity to develop the necessary skills of a contemporary Lighting Designer while gaining an understanding of new technologies. The work you will undertake will give you a taste of the management and creative demands faced by the lighting designer when designing projects and productions in a challenging scale or context.

Placements

Throughout the course, but especially in the third year, you will create links with your chosen area of the industry and spend some time working outside Central, to make the journey from the academic world to the professional world as seamless as possible. You will maintain regular contact with industry professionals and recent graduates, keeping you in close contact with the freelance arena, as well as with major theatre and event companies.