THEATER WOW: Dead Outlaw's Lighting Designer Heather Gilbert Creates a Million Lovely Moments
Celebrating the many collaborations that led to Dead Outlaw's gorgeous lighting.
There’s a moment in the tremendous off-Broadway show Dead Outlaw where Elmer McCurdy’s ex-girlfriend Maggie walks from where she’s standing stage right to the band set. She steps up to the mike and sings this unexpectedly beautiful, heartfelt song. And this web of lights hanging from the stage left corner of the net quietly come up and paint her in this gorgeous, tender light. It’s of a pitch-perfect piece with actress Julia Knitel’s performance, a transfiguration of the set that allows us to see what’s inside the heart of this young woman who loved Elmer and then discovered he was a total mystery to her.
Throughout the show there are moments like this where a cast member breaks what you might call the internal fourth wall of the stage—even though they’re on stage, the band most often speaks directly to us and is ignored by the characters, as though it exists in our world rather than theirs. But then suddenly—and delightfully—they’ll break that wall and take over, delivering numbers in radically different styles, from that country ballad to a raging punk number that Elmer delivers to a funny Sinatraesque lounge lizard number from the LA coroner who deals with Elmer’s body. (Actually every actor in the show gets a moment like this, another fabulous part of the show.)
And in each case, the lighting, especially of that stage set—which includes so many more kinds of lights than you realize—ends up being a big part of creating that moment: the brightly-lit brashness and severity of the punk moment; the silky darkness and clean controlled light of the lounge.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Pop Culture Spirit Wow to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.