Never use the word “No”

I sometimes encounter, when I’m teaching, a situation of having a young director and a young design team that gets into a problem. So, I have a little speech I want to say: to a new director: “Don’t ever let a lighting designer say no to you” or any designer for that matter. Let’s say you’re in the first tech and things are highly energized and you (the director) ask for something related to the cues being created and the lighting designer says “NO”; you should call a coffee break and take him (her) out in the alley and say, “Don’t ever say NO to me; I’m sure I said something that you think of as being too complicated or too difficult or different from what we talked about, but don’t.” say NO. Let’s look at it together and you can show me what the problem is.”

However, then I want to say to that director, “Come on now, you have had the actors for three or four weeks, you are way ahead of the lighting designer in the understanding of this play (musical). This lighting designer has just turned on the lights for the first time, he (she) just got done with the focus and is sitting at the tech table looking at the stage from the front  for the first time. He’s (she’s) looking to see if what he (she) was imagining as he (she) made the light plot, is in fact there, on the stage. The request you made might be very good and very important but it’s much too soon and too sophisticated for him(her) to understand now as he’s (she’s)just getting started. So, back off and give him(her) a chance to breathe before laying on all of these ideas.” And then I say to the lighting designer, here’s a sample sentence to use to avoid the word No. “What an interesting (or beautiful) idea. I need to think about that; let’s look at it together so I can see what you mean.” 

These two people need to get along and need to get the best out of each other and timing- wise they’re out of sync. The lighting designer will get up to speed very quickly, that’s part of their job, but Directors will get the best out of their Lighting Designers if they understand the timing.