Allen Clark

 

In Grad School, I found myself sitting in a room with 5 other first year MFA students (all of whom had a much stronger arts background than this stiff engineer) feeling very insecure. In walked a madman with wild grey hair, huge bushy eyebrows, and a glorious English accent - Dr. David Nancarrow. His enthusiasm, his seemingly random teaching style, and his his unorthodox way of approaching lighting had me bewitched. I still remember one of the first commandments he gave to us. "I want to see you climb out as far onto that limb as you can, then turn around and start cutting through the branch just to see what happens." My poor little engineer trained brain was screaming "I know what will happen, I'll fall down and die!!" But I didn't die. Oh, we all fell occasionally, of course we did. That's what school should encourage. But Dr. Nancarrow was always there to pick me up, dust me off, and send me out onto another branch. He taught me how to dissect a work from the perspective of the playwright, the composer, the choreographer, and not just the designer. What was the essence of the piece, not just the stage directions, the setting, the dialogue, the steps. Why would these characters do these particular things, say those particular words, move that particular way, at that particular time. To him, a lighting designer was a CRAFTSMAN first - there to service and support the text and the director's vision of that text - but our ART came in how we approached the material. It was not which lights we turned on when. Ultimately, what he taught was the hardest lesson of all - how to see the light before an actor walked through it, before the dancer jumped into it. He taught me to know what was there, and to know why I put it there. I learned that I had put it there because that is what was right for that moment. I was no longer afraid if it wasn't what everyone else did.                        

 

Start cutting, baby, and see what happens.