Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachael N. Blackwell
Hi Rachael N., thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
From a very young age, my mother introduced my sister and I to the arts. She teaches English at a community college in VA that had a Theatre department, where they would produce Gilbert & Sullivan operas nearly every summer. I started helping out as a painter and then some carpentry, but hadn’t really paid attention to lighting at the time. Fast forward to my freshman year at Alabama State University, where I entered as an undeclared major. I went to the theater one night during welcome week where they were putting on a production of “Crowns.” I had never heard of the show or seen it, but from the moment it began, I was hooked. From the acting & singing to the production value, I knew this is where I wanted to spend my time in college. The very next day, I walked into the admissions office and declared myself a Theatre major. From there, I worked in the scene shop and helped build the shows and worked on run crew once they were open. Then my lighting professor at the time, Jeff Davis, asked me to assist him on the dance show and that’s when lighting became my passion. After my time at Alabama State, I worked with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival as their Electrics intern while I looked at grad schools. I was awarded the Albert C. Yates fellowship through the University of Cincinnati, which paid for my post graduate studies in Lighting Design & Technology at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (CCM.) Upon graduating from CCM in 2020, I freelanced as a Designer, Assistant/Associate and Programmer where I could. I had the opportunity to work with PCPA, Syracuse Stage, Nashville Rep, Arkansas Rep, Orlando Rep, Florentine Opera, Grand Teton Music Festival, and many other companies. I also toured briefly as the Lighting Supervisor with a few dance companies, including Urban Bush Women, Gibney Dance, and Contra Tiempo Latin Activist Dance Theatre. All of these experiences were extremely fulfilling and gave me the tools I needed to succeed in my current position as the Lighting & Projections Director for the Alliance Theatre here in Atlanta.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road has been challenging at times, but never insurmountable. Being a black, queer woman in a predominately white male space has not always been comfortable, but it is necessary in order to continue raising awareness of other BIPOC artists in the design industry. I can’t tell you how many times people have come up to me to say “you’re the first black lighting designer I’ve met!” or “you’re the first black female lighting designer I’ve met!” However, one of the most challenging times for me was upon entering grad school. ASU was primarily an actor-based theatre program, meaning there were only about half a dozen people interested in the technical side of theatre (myself included.) While this allowed us to have more opportunities to learn and play, I didn’t receive any formal training on all of the math and drafting that goes along with designing a show from start to finish, which is also why I decided on post graduate studies. I felt a good grad program would help fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge. When I started at CCM, I was extremely overwhelmed from day one and constantly felt as if I was playing catch up. A lot of the undergrads in the program had more technical experience than me as a graduate student and it was mentally and emotionally taxing to try and learn in an environment that felt out of my league. All this to say, I persevered through and made it out on the other side with so much more knowledge, passion and appreciation for my craft.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My specialty is lighting and I am a freelance Lighting Designer, Programmer and Assistant/Associate Lighting Designer but before all of these titles, I am an artist and a creative first. I love working on new & original works, pieces created for/by BIPOC artists and works that uplift women and the queer community. I am most proud of a work I curated during the pandemic in 2020 entitled “Four Women & An Artist.” The piece can still be found on YouTube and it was extremely well received when it launched. I was alluding to Ms. Simone’s piece when Four Women and an Artist was named as such. However, instead of portraying the women as the four archetypes described in the song, my goal was to shine a light on how heavy the black community had been feeling with daily reports of new police brutality against our black men. I chose to do this by having four women of a certain age surround a young, black man (our visual artist) -as he could easily be anyone of their son, brother, nephew, or any other male family member. This thought was then compounded by the image of a silhouetted artist, a faceless black man, creating his emotional response and his reality to both what’s going on around him on stage as well as what’s going on around him in the world. The four women each prepared a piece (either song or prose) that span from 1926 until now referencing timely topics such as racial discrimination and inequalities. The piece opened and closed with a pre- & postlude by one of my best friends Donald Allen Lee III. This piece is and was very near and dear to my heart because it allowed me to collaborate with my family, friends and my community. As a designer, I think what sets me apart from others is my musicality with lighting as well as my color choices. I tend to mix colors in a non-traditional way and I have found it very effective in all of my previous designs. Additionally, coming from a music background (middle & high school band geek through and through!), a lot of my designs have looks/cues that are tied to changes in the music and not always necessarily on actor/dancer movements. You can catch one of my current lighting designs at the Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville in their production of “The Color Purple”, which runs through September 15.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
In the theatre industry specifically, I’m seeing a lot more usage of projections being used either as scenery and/or to give a staged piece a more cinematic feel. I think in general, projections are great and I’ve seen some really effective designs with them so I’m a fan! I have also noticed that in general, tech time/periods have gotten shorter across the board. This is in part due to the changes proposed during the pandemic to end 10 out of 12s, and while the awareness is important and we should all be taking better care of ourselves and our time, it does seem to cause more stress to get to the same polished product with half the amount of time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bnrlight.com
- Instagram: @therealbnrlight
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3fWyvwGQTI
Image Credits
Casey Ford
Nicole Page-Blackwell
Traveling Lemur Productions
