Hands on a Hardbody
Lighting design for the 2016 production of Hands on a Hardbody at Players Theatre, directed by Michael Newton-Brown.
About the Lighting Design
Hands on a Hardbody is set in a car dealership where ten people compete to win a truck by keeping their hand on it the longest. The set was essentially a back wall, the truck itself, and some hanging penants. That left lighting to define the rest of the space.
In retrospect, this was my first professional experiment with lighting as architecture. We built large goal-post structures (color scrollers at the time, before LED), added moving lights and overhead incandescent sources, and turned the rig itself into a canopy over the playing space. The whole structure became a giant piece of lighting architecture. Fixtures as the room, not just sources inside it.
That approach resurfaced years later in The Color Purple (2022) and The Boy Who Loved Batman (2024) at much larger scales. Hands on a Hardbody is where it started for me professionally.
- Book
- Doug Wright
- Lyrics
- Amanda Green
- Based on the documentary film by
- S.R. Bindler
- Director
- Michael Newton-Brown
- Choreographer
- Kelly Burnette
- Music Director
- Alan Corey
- Scenic Designer
- Michael Newton-Brown
- Costume Designer
- Kaylene McCaw
- Lighting Designer
- Mike Wood
- Sound Designer
- Seth Berry
- Props Designer
- Kat Walton
- Technical Director
- Ken Junkins
- Assistant Technical Director
- Alyssa Goudy
- Stage Manager
- Patty Snyder-Atkins
- Production Manager
- Berry Ayers
About the Show
Contestants in a small Texas town compete for a brand-new pickup truck by seeing who can keep their hands on the vehicle the longest. As each contestant faces physical and emotional endurance, the musical delves into their backgrounds, dreams, and motivations, highlighting their highs and lows along the way.
Source: Concord
Cast
Greg Boehringer as Benny PerkinsDavid Storm as Frank NugentRic Stroup as JD DrewRuth Shaulis as Cindy BarnesJohn T. Wyczlinski as Chris AlvaroEldrec Brown as Ronald McCowanTim Fitzgerald as Mike FerrisJohn Andruzzi as Norma ValverdeRiselle Bain as Virginia DrewDebbi White as Janis CurtisLucy Malacus as Heather StovallJennifer Baker as Kelli MangrumAsia Dekle as HeatherJoe Wolf as Jesús PeñaRobert Terry as Don CurtisJay Bowman as Dr. Stokes