Ben Stanton is a lighting designer for theater, concerts, dance, installations, and events. He is a three-time Tony Award nominee as well as an Obie, Lortel, IRNE, and Ovation Award winner. Recent Broadway credits include The Rose Tattoo, Derren Brown: Secret, Regina Spektor: Live On Broadway, Ayad Akhtar’s Junk, the revival of Six Degrees of Separation, Deaf West Theater’s revival of Spring Awakening, Fully Committed, and Fun Home. He has designed concerts and tours for recording artists including Beirut, Melanie Martinez, Regina Spektor, Sufjan Stevens, and St. Vincent. He serves as the resident lighting director for Skylight Modern, and he’s the founder and principal designer at Stanton Collaborative, a group that specializes in bringing a theatrical aesthetic to corporate events, concerts, and installations.
Ben took time out from his crazy schedule of lighting like 147 shows and being a new Dad to help me understand how lighting affects a show and . . .
- How being trained as a drummer makes him a better lighting designer.
- How guessing is involved in lighting design.
- Does he like how shows are incorporating more and more projections? (An interesting perspective considering his wife is the super talented projection designer Lucy Mackinnon, who also was on Spring.)
- What LEDs are doing to Broadway and is that a good thing or a bad thing?
- What he wants all Broadway producers to know about lighting design.
Keep up with me: @KenDavenportBway