"I love that moment in tech when you're in the auditorium and the cast and orchestra are on stage in front of you, performing the show seemingly just for you. How fabulous is that? What better job could there be?"
Rob Halliday has worked as a lighting designer and
lighting programmer for the last fifteen years. His
speciality is large scale musicals, though he has also
brought the techniques and technology from these shows
to productions of all types and scales.
As a lighting designer, his
most recent work includes the touring production of
Equus, Daddy Cool in London and
Berlin, and Jane Eyre & City of
Angels at the Royal Academy of Music. The
touring production of My Fair Lady, which
he designed with Oliver Fenwick and David Hersey in
2005, has just finished an American tour during
which it won the Touring Broadway Award for best
production design. The UK tour of Mary
Poppins, on which he worked with Howard
Harrison and Oliver Fenwick, has just finished its
succesful UK tour.
As a lighting
programmer, he works on a wide range of shows
including Les Misérables, Miss
Saigon, Oliver!, Mary
Poppins, Ragtime, Martin Guerre,
Oklahoma!, and many, many more all over the
world.
Many of these shows were the most complex of their
time, with Mary Poppins still the largest
moving light rig on Broadway. He was a pioneer of
having one programmer and one console deal with the
entire lighting rig.
He is led by a love of theatre and of new challenges,
'showbiz is my life' the quip he uses to explain why
he's spent so much time in darkened theatre auditoria!
Rob also writes about lighting and technical production
for publications including Lighting & Sound
International, Lighting & Sound
America, Lighting Dimensions,
Entertainment Design, and others. The best of
these articles have been collected into two books,
Entertainment In Production vol 1 (1994-1999)
and vol 2 (2000-2006), available now from ET Books and other good booksellers,
or read more here.
Rob also runs lectures or workshops at trade shows
including PLASA and LDI, and at drama colleges
including LAMDA, Guildhall, Central, NIDA, RADA and the
Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
Rob's books Entertainment in
Production vols 1 and 2 are available now!