The Boy Who Loved Batman
Straz Center Jaeb Theater Tampa, FL
Lighting design for the 2024 production of The Boy Who Loved Batman at Straz Center, directed by Jeff Calhoun.
About the Lighting Design
The Boy Who Loved Batman lived in the visual language of comic books. The protagonist’s life and journey were both anchored to comics, so the design was too. Saturated colors. Splat gobos. Shutter cuts in squares and rectangles that echoed comic panel framing. The lighting wasn’t decorating a comic-book aesthetic; it was speaking the same language.
Working with projection designer Caite Hevner and scenic designer Daniel Allen, whose set evoked a giant comic book, the lighting had to integrate with their work rather than compete with it. LED tape framed both the show’s portals and the individual comic panels Daniel built into the set, shifting color and running effects in sync with what Caite was projecting on the panel fronts. Whenever the video shifted, the LED tape and the surrounding light shifted with it.
Shadow play became a primary tool. Backlighting with a single colored source created actor silhouettes inside Caite’s video panels. The video team could layer additional framing on the front of a panel while light defined the figure behind it. Color and positioning shifted with the video content, so the silhouette never sat outside the moment.
Lighting fixtures became architecture. Tall booms downstage left and right extended the set visually. The visible lenses and light sources added another framing layer. Even the rig was part of the comic-book world.
- Writer
- Asa Somers
- Director
- Jeff Calhoun
- Assistant Director
- Anthony C Daniel
- Scenic Designer
- Daniel Allen
- Costume Designer
- Newt Rametta
- Lighting Designer
- Mike Wood
- Sound Designer
- Jeremy Douglass
- Projection Designer
- Caite Hevner
- Assistant Lighting Designer
- Mack Scales
- Programmer
- Dalton Hamilton
- Electrician
- Reuben Hirsh
- Lighting Shop
- Christie Lites (Rep: Chris McMeen )
About the Show
Michael Uslan loved Batman as a superhero, despised the campy 1960s TV show and became determined to bring the real Batman—dark, serious, burdened by a tragic past—to the silver screen. After a ten-year human endurance contest in which every major movie studio turned him down, Uslan went on to become Executive Producer on every modern Batman film, beginning with Tim Burton's widely hailed Batman in 1989 to Christopher Nolan's celebrated Dark Knight trilogy and well beyond.
Source: Nederlander
Cast
Dan Fogler as Michael UslanDavid Jenkins as Michael UslanPaul Adam Schaefer as Imaginary FriendKatherine Yacko as Nancy UslanKelly BasharNicholas Perez-HoopHugh Timoney as ensemble