KCACTF Region V: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota

Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Region 5 sponsors a lighting design workshop for undergraduate and graduate students in conjunction with the Regional Festival. This workshop is for those students with an interest in the area of lighting design and provides an opportunity to realize their lighting design ideas in a collaborative workshop setting and receive a response from a guest lighting professional.

AWARDS: One student’s design will be recognized as the outstanding project of the event at the Festival Awards Ceremony.
All designs will be critiqued in open forum, and may be reworked in an extended critique period by the special guest designers. The extent to which pieces are reviewed and reworked will depend on the guest designers in order to illustrate discussion points.
1. WHO: Any undergraduate or graduate student enrolled for at least 6 hours at any college or university associated with the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, Region V.
2. HOW TO ENTER: Complete the online entry form by December 15 and mail or electronically submit your completed project to Peggy Sannerud (psannerud@winona.edu) by December 31. Students selected to participate in the workshop will be notified by email as well as regular mail by January 11. Participants must bring display copies of their projects to the workshop venue at 8:00 am Monday January 22 for public presentation.
3. ENTRY SCHEDULE:

Complete the online entry form and register for the festival by December 15
All projects must be mailed on CD in the proper formats to Peggy Sannerud, David L. Thayer Coordinator, by December 31.
All entrants will be notified of the selected workshop participants by email by January 11, 2008. Participants may receive additional schedule information with the selection notification. There will be a maximum of eight entrants selected from the complete entries.

4. THE DESIGN:
Links to all paperwork are at the bottom of this page.
                        Each entrant is to select a piece of music from 3-5 minutes in length and design compositional light appropriate to the music. Each entrant will provide two or more objects of their choice to light during the performance. The choice of music, properties and lighting looks should reflect a personal relationship to the work, a personal vision. A story need not be told. The objects may or may not move. Be careful that lyrics, scenery and properties do not carry a disproportionate amount of meaning for this project - this is a lighting demonstration.
                        Each design should show evidence of the use of side light, top or back light and three-dimensional front light. Three lighting areas are available for use.
                        Each design must include the following appearances: color change on the object(s), change object to background contrast (through color or intensity), focus change from one object to another (through color, intensity, or direction of throw) and reshaping of the object(s) (through color, intensity, and direction change), as well as a change in focus from one acting area to another. Background is also considered part of the design, and the designer may choose from a white cyclorama, cyc and black scrim, or a blackout drape.
                        None of the fixtures from the common plot may be refocused but all may be recolored as time permits. Entrants must bring their own framed and labeled color and templates in holders. Each entrant may hang up to four specials. Each design may incorporate up to 15 fixtures including: fixtures from the common plot, specials and any motivational light source (provided by the designer). A strip light counts as one fixture.
                        Note: Each entry must change over a number of times. During the performance, a total of 7 minutes is allotted to each changeover. It will be to your benefit to limit the amount of change necessary and to ensure that the lit object is solid and easily moved, and not composed of a myriad of small intricate parts with a complicated setup. No use of fly system is permitted for the object(s).
Each entry must include:

An online entry form as well as festival registration
A Statement of Concept or approach to the design problem; the designers intent in bringing together the selected music, props and lighting materials (include the title of the music)
A Cue List containing descriptive statements of how each cue advances the concept
A Light Plot (including scenic pieces) following USITT Recommended Practices, which can be found on their website
An Instrument Schedule, including position, unit number, purpose, color, template, dimmer, and channel.

Each final presentation at the Festival must include the following in addition to the above:

Music on CD
A color key or compass
A Shop Order of instruments, color, templates and other equipment used. Do not include cable or control needs on the shop order.
Vertical section(s)
An instrument schedule (location, purpose, fixture type, dimmer#, channel #, color, template)
A track sheet or a board operator's cue sheet/preset sheets
Each element must be clearly identified with the designer's name and school, and arranged for a lobby display during the Workshop. After the Workshop, designers will move their displays to the Design Expo for the remainder of the conference.

Note: electronic submissions are required this year.
Allowable formats for text documents are: Microsoft Word (DOC), or Adobe PDF. Please convert DOCX to DOC if you use Word 2007.
Instrument schedules may use Excel or Lightwright.
Allowable formats for graphic files are: JPEG or PDF only. Light Plots and Sections should also be submitted in DXF or DWG format as well as a PDF version if possible. The drafting will be viewed using VectorWorks v. 12.5.
Entrants will be emailed confirmation that submissions have been received and attachments opened successfully.
On the basis of the information submitted, a maximum of eight designers will be selected to mount their designs during the Festival.
5. SCHEDULE FOR THOSE SELECTED TO BE PARTICIPANTS:
Please note that the schedule times are subject to change. You will receive any updates to theschedule at the initial meeting at 8:00 am Monday January 21.

SUNDAY January 20:

4:00-5:30 pm - Hang and Focus – All participants, their assistants, or designated substitutes will meet at Creighton University Lied Education Center for the Arts Main Stage to hang and focus the common plot.

On Monday, January 21 beginning at 8:00 am, the participants will meet at Creighton University Lied Education Center for the Performing Arts Main Stage. Following the initial meeting and introductions, the participants will hang, focus and color the specials required and focus fixtures from the common plot. Participants should bring an assistant to help with the set up, cuing, performance and strike, and we encourage designers to serve as each others’ stagehands where possible. All designers should plan on being present from 8:00 to 4:00, and are not excused when their piece is complete. Tech and performance order will be decided by lottery.
Each designer will be given up to 55 minutes total to set up, cue, and rehearse their piece. This time includes changing over into the piece, but not out of it. Pieces will tech in performance order so changeovers may be organized. Please be ready – if a designer does not use the full time allotted, we will proceed ahead of schedule!

Designers will remount their designs, run them again, and receive detailed feedback from David Thayer and an invited guest designer to be named. These sessions are public and informal. Each designer will get a maximum of ½ hour.

New feature for this year:
Participants and guest designers felt that more detailed and meaningful response could be given if each piece was followed by its own critique time. However, guests were interested in keeping the performance quality of each piece following the next in rapid succession, so they could see all the pieces and support their designers without attending an all-day event.
In an attempt to satisfy these different needs, we are going to run all the pieces back to back in a performance mode, and then repeat them again with time to critique and experiment in between.

The performance time should be 3-5 minutes. Performances will be terminated at 6 minutes.
Each designer selected for participation should bring one crew member to assist in the set up, cuing, performance and strike.
The paperwork for each design participant will be displayed during the Festival. Each participant must bring a hard copy of all paperwork suitable for display at the workshop as well as a working copy for their own use.
The color key or compass is a graphic illustrating direction of throw for each selected color filter and should appear on the light plot along with a legend and key.
Fixtures (other than motivational), cable, mounting positions, dimmers, control and sound system will be provided.
Each designer must provide his or her own color filters and templates, framed and ready to go.
Each designer must take responsibility for being physically and mentally prepared to execute their project within the time constraint of a total of 55 minutes.

6. FEES: There is no entry fee for the workshop but you must be registered for the festival. You will be expected to provide your objects to light, all color media, templates, music and materials.
7. RETURN OF ENTRIES : Workshop participants are responsible for picking up their materials at the end of the day Tuesday.
8. LIABILITY : The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, Region Five, accepts no responsibility for damage or loss of any entry, regardless of cause.
9. RESPONSES : There will be a verbal response given for each participant. Entrants who were not selected to participate in the workshop will be provided a brief critique of their submitted materials by email.
10. QUESTIONS? Questions regarding the David L. Thayer Lighting Design Workshop should be addressed to:
Peggy Sannerud
Department of Theatre & Dance
Winona State University
PO Box 5838
Winona MN 55987
(507) 457-5247

If you have trouble downloading any of the above files, they're posted on a different server HERE

Mainstage Lighting Info.doc	Mainstage Lineset Info.doc	Mainstage Physical Info.doc	Thayer Instrument Shedule.txt is no longer posted. Use this instead: Thayer 2008 Schedule.doc
Thayer Instrument Schedule.lw4	Thayer Light Plot.mcd	Thayer Light Plot.pdf	Thayer Section.mcd	Thayer Section.pdf