I was a junior in high school when I was a scholarship student at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the summer of 1960. In the cafeteria, the group was lunching when the stage manager of the entire 10-week season came around looking for recruits for the tech crew. She, the stage manager, Maxine Glorsky said to me, “Hey, kid, you wanna work backstage?”
I ran a follow spot from right behind the proscenium all season, right over her head and that of the board operator as they operated the entire Festival.
Beverly Emmons (Lighting Designer) has designed for Broadway, Off-B’way and Regional Theater, Dance and Opera both in the USA and abroad. Her Broadway credits include Annie Get Your Gun, Jekyll & Hyde, The Heiress, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, High Rollers, Stepping Out, The Elephant Man, A Day in Hollywood A Night in the Ukraine, The Dresser, Piaf and Doonesbury. Her lighting of Amadeus won a Tony award., Off B’way she lit Vagina Monologues and has designed many productions with Joseph Chaikin and Meredith Monk. For Robert Wilson, she has designed lighting for productions spanning 13 years; most notably in America, Einstein on the Beach and the Civil Wars Pt V. Ms Emmons’ designs for dance have included works for Lucinda Child, Trisha Brown, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. She has been awarded seven Tony nominations, the 1976 Lumen award, 1984 and 1986 Bessies, and a 1980 Obie for Distinguished Lighting, and several Maharam/American Theater Wing Design Awards. Additionally, she has created and curated TheLightingArchive.org and LightingDB.nypl.org; two websites that make historical lighting documents accessible to students and scholars on the Internet.
