Born Blue: A New Musical
Lighting design for the 2012 production of Born Blue: A New Musical at The Cutting Room, directed by Anthony Rapp.
About the Lighting Design
The show was a rock-soul musical in a nontraditional space, not a theater but a music venue, directed by Anthony Rapp with a well-known cast and creative team. The design needed to use the room’s equipment and positions in ways the venue’s architect hadn’t originally intended, treating the existing lighting infrastructure as raw material for a theatrical concert. The result felt like a rock concert masquerading as a play, which is what the show wanted to be.
Born Blue: A New Musical at The Cutting Room was my first New York production. It happened before my Tampa breakout, and it helped lead to it.
- Book, Music, and Lyrics
- Caren Tackett
- Director
- Anthony Rapp
- Choreographer
- Miri Park
- Music Director
- Jared Stein
- Costume Designer
- Angela Vesco
- Lighting Designer
- Mike Wood
- Sound Designer
- Alex Ritter
- Projection Designer
- Cory Michael Smithson
- Assistant Lighting Designer
- Zach Zamchik
About the Show
Born Blue is an existential rock and soul musical set in a post-apocalyptic dive bar somewhere between life and death, where lost souls drink the "Blue House Brew" — a drink whose purpose is not to intoxicate, but to flush away one's previous life experiences and prepare them for rebirth. Told in metaphor and myth, the piece explores the cycles of fear and prejudice surrounding sex, race, sexual orientation, and organized religion. Caren Tackett has described it as her own life experience refracted through that allegorical lens.
Source: BroadwayWorld
Cast
Jamilah AdderlyEmily AftonTiffany BarbourBen BenowitzToby BlackwellBrittany CampbellJustin CatalinoLauren ElderNkrumah GatlingSam GivenNate GrayAdam HalpinJustin JohnstonKatie KiyanElise LevinBilly LewisEvan Maltby