Drama 16 Stage Lighting

LIPS, a drag bar, for my 21st birthday. 2/9/14

To some, the lighting in this photo may spell out “tacky.” But I am a sucker for the cheap, orangey chandelier lighting in the dark room. I had two dream jobs as a child: Scooby Doo villain, and singer in a seedy, smoky bar. I grew out of the former, but still hold the latter very dear to my heart. There is something so comforting to me about the dimly lit room; it heightens the aural senses. (And of course, if I *were* the performer in this case, maybe crooning through a doleful rendition of “Bewitched,” I would be smack dab in the middle of that orange, hazy lighting.  I can hear glasses clinking and friends enjoying tipsy chatter, just from looking at this picture.

2/19/15, 6pm — some hole-in-the-wall store in the Garment District

I might have been in the fourth dimension last Thursday night. Michael and I had gone into the city to see a show, but before the show, he had to pick up some fabric for a dress he was making. It was seven degrees outside and we were getting around only by foot, so we chose the first fabric store we found in the Garment District.

There were tens of thousands of rolls of fabric — few of them looked new and clean. Most were old and dusty. The dust from these fabric rolls, combined with the fluorescent lighting, cast a strange white haze over the whole store. It was reminiscent of the lighting used for a Heaven scene in some comedy movie. And then there were the many, many colors from the fabrics on the shelves. More colors than on Joseph’s Dreamcoat. In warmer incandescent lighting, these colors would have been a welcoming rainbow of sorts. In this lighting, they were ultra-tacky and ultra-wacky. As I wandered the shop with a Penn Station beer in one hand and our tickets to the show in the other, passing by rolls of plush faux fur and of hideous shag carpeting, I wondered if I had entered the Twilight Zone.