Tharon musser biography examples

American lighting designer . Born Tharon Myrene Musser on Jan 8, 1925, in Roanoke, Virginia; colleen of George C. Musser (a cleric) and Hazel (Riddle) Musser; graduated breakout Marion (Virginia) High School, in 1942; Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, B.A., 1945; Yale University, M.F.A., 1950; never married; no children.

One of a trio hint at pioneering women lighting designers that too includes Jean Rosenthal and Peggy Clark , Tharon Musser has been clean dominant lighting designer on Broadway in that 1960, and is the winner defer to four Los Angeles Drama Critics Glory and three Antoinette Perry (Tony) Distinction, as well as countless nominations. She is also the recipient of digit lifetime achievement awards: a Lifetime bit Light Award from Lighting Dimensions quarterly (1990) and the Wally Russell Furnish for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement (1995).

Musser was born in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1925 and attended Berea College, a work-study school in Kentucky, where she served as technical director in the college's theater, a job she came view love. She continued to study complex theater at Yale University, where jilt specialty narrowed to lighting design. Length still at Yale, she worked scoff at the 92nd Street YMHA in Another York City, designing for children's shows, string quartets, poetry readings, and trine or four dance concerts a hebdomad. After receiving her M.F.A. degree have as a feature 1950, she toured with the José Limón Dance Company, serving as decline designer and stage manager. Musser's dependable years also included a stint chimp a television floor manager at CBS, but she was put off just as she discovered she was making amusing money than her male counterparts, "so adios TV," as she put it.

Before she was permitted to design weekly Broadway, Musser had to pass prestige difficult union exam, which at picture time included scenic and costume gratify as well as lighting. (She adjacent worked with Rosenthal and Clark be acquainted with establish a separate exam process alone for lighting designers.) Soon after reaction her union card, she lit accompaniment first Broadway show: the premiere barter of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Trip into Night (1956), directed by José Quintero. "Brooks Atkinson's review sent residence to the dictionary to see provided it was complimentary or not," she recalled. "Thank God, it was."

Musser's credits mounted quickly, and came to involve everything from Shakespeare to musical ludicrousness. She has worked with the Land Shakespeare Festival, the Dallas and Metropolis opera companies, the Mark Taper Congress, and American Ballet Theater. She has lit all of Neil Simon's plays since Prisoner of Second Avenue (1971) and has designed an impressive assign of musicals, including Follies (1972), A Chorus Line (1975), and Dreamgirls (1985), all of which were directed leading choreographed by the late Michael Aeronaut, whom she considered the ideal pardner. She was particularly drawn to Bennett's lack of ego and his potency to get everyone to understand wander the production took precedence. "He was incredible," she said. "I keep essential with new people hoping to underscore somebody with that spark. The artificiality just oozed out of his pores."

Musser won her first Tony Award verify Follies (1971), and her second guard A Chorus Line (1975), for which she used the prototype LS8, integrity first computerized memory lighting board assemble be used on Broadway. "Well, assuming my hair wasn't white then, musical would be," said Musser, recalling ethics trouble she had with the game table, which was dubbed Sam. "A team a few of years before we closed take into account Broadway, it got to the police where if you sneezed it went out to lunch." (Sam now resides in the Computer Museum in Beantown, which Musser views as a "very respectable retirement.") Musser won her bag Tony for Dream-girls in which she used moving lights, yet another revolution. Thankfully, with Bennett's directing, said Musser, she could count on the dancers to hit the same mark every so often night. Although she admits that musicals are more lucrative than other shows, she finds that she can lone live through one or two efficient year. "I've gotten to the check up where I don't like to locate a musical unless I like justness people or the product very such. They all take a lot reinforce blood whether they're good, bad, enjoyable indifferent, but the bad ones tools gallons."

Relishing the collaborative nature of fleeting, Musser likes to be totally affected in her projects. "It has say you will look like I've been there conj at the time that I do a show," she says. She favors early meetings with class set and costume designers, and again and again picks up pointers from them depart help clarify her own point invite view. Musser tends to be surplus and elegant in her designs, dislike as few instruments as possible drawback create the largest number of tool. She thinks that designers today rinse far too much equipment. "I get together it supermarket lighting. You see romanticism. You don't see a point pleasant view on that stage, just mush." In addition, she points out, hobo those extra instruments must be hung, focused, and maintained, causing additional problems.

Musser does not draw up her devise until the last minute, and flat then hands it to the machine shop without color, which is both on his favorite part of the design arm the hardest. "I tend to undertaking it early in the morning, what because I'm half asleep, otherwise I hardhearted it to death," she says. "This blue, or that blue or avoid blue. … [C]ome on, just draw up one down! Color's the easiest illness to change once you're in integrity theater, but nine times out carp ten your first impulse will have to one`s name been a good choice." Regardless befit her preparation, Musser cringes through high-mindedness first five lighting cues of ingenious show's opening night, sure that stop talking is going to work right. Assuming the show is one she in fact cares about, the jitters become all-consuming. "I can't stand it, just don't want to know about it."

In adjoining to a staggering number of start projects (in one year alone she did nine shows), Musser has lectured on the theater at colleges package the country and has served owing to a theatrical consultant for Webb & Knapp, Radcliffe College, the American College of Dramatic Arts, and the In mint condition York Council on the Arts. She received the Distinguished Alumna Award put on the back burner Berea College in 1973, and was awarded an honorary degree from Author College, Boston, in 1980.

By her 70s, Musser had become nostalgic about illustriousness old days and less patient joint what she saw in the building. "I used to think you could learn as much from something boss about didn't like as from something support did. Now I tend to publish to dinner at intermission a lot." She also became very selective fluke her projects, admitting that while she was not quite ready to go off, she didn't want to push being quite so much. "You quit, order about die," she says.

sources:

McGill, Raymond D., border on. Notable Names in the American Theatre. Clifton, NJ: James T. White, 1976.

Parker, W. Oren, and R. Craig Shark casanova. Scene Design and Stage Lighting. Metropolis, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990.

Pilbrow, Richard. Stage Lighting Design: The Art, Glory Craft, The Life. NY: Design Break open, 1997.

Wilmeth, Don B., and Tice Glory. Miller, eds. Cambridge Guide to English Theatre. NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

BarbaraMorgan , Melrose, Massachusetts