Saran Polchan, dramaturgy student, talks with Deanna Howard, lighting designer for Penn State Off-Centre Stage’s upcoming production of Polaroid Stories by Naomi Iizuka.

SP: So what inspired you to go into Lighting Design?

DH: Wow [giggles] that’s not what I expected. Okay, so I went to a performing arts high school and I was a theatre major. And I was really frustrated with like my work as like an actor, and as a playwright. And it wasn’t like fun for me anymore, I wasn’t happy. So I wanted to try something new, so I started directing, didn’t really care for directing, started to do a bunch of other things, and then I became a designer. Umm, and there was this lighting workshop, and I was like “you know what? I want to learn how to do that,” because for lighting and sound, it was always “don’t touch those, only certain people knew how things worked.” And then I was taught how to work the board and then I became the lighting person in high school and it took off from there.

SP: Cool, that’s an amazing story! And so my second question is how do you begin your process?

DH:  So for this, I was like okay I immediately need to read the script, and then read the script again, and read the script again. And then for this show, it was like read the script again and again and again and again and again because this show is super confusing and like…..wow…. It’s like a mind— [Laughs] Seriously, but every time I watch it I understand it more and more. And I am still discovering things like, we had the designer run yesterday and I’m still discovering things about the show. So then after that, it was like plot, plot, plot, plot. This is a rep plot, but I still had a ton of ideas. I wanted sight lights, we didn’t have enough space for them, I wanted a ground row, not an up space row, I wanted….can’t even remember because it was so far away because I can’t be married to my ideas.

SP: Sounds like you’re very ambitious. [both laugh]

DH: It was kind of like a lesson for me as to why they have a rep plot. So there are the things I can’t do, so what can I do? So I started to think about color, started to do photometric to see what else I need and what else I wanted. So I started to color test, and so I got a sample from scenic and I thought what colors did I see? What colors did I think of? What colors are the characters in the show? And started testing them and if I liked them and if they clash or if they didn’t. So it kinda came together from there. But then it got crazy real when I got into the space!

SP: When did you first read this play, and what did you think?

DH:  When we first learned about our show assignments back in February. I was like this show is crazy, this show is like, wow, none of us understand how it works yet but we were all super excited and super intrigued.

SP: Using three words, describe our production of Polaroid Stories.

DH: “Real”, ”Raw,” and “Unique”

SP: What is your favorite line from the play?

“I ain’t f****ed up, I’m a god. I’m a god and that’s a fact. And this my kingdom. Welcome to my kingdom, Oklahoma boy.”

SP: Without giving too much away, what part of the production are you most excited to do/see on stage?

DH: I’m excited to get the actors on set. I’m excited to finish up cueing like the basic cues that I have in my script, but I’m so super for them to get there. I’m excited for tech, that’s going to be great!