Natasha Chivers is based in London and has been lighting since leaving LAMDA over 20 years ago. Her awards include… winner of Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Lighting Design for Prima Facie; winner of Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design for Sunday In The Park With George at the Wyndhams Theatre; winner of Theatre Award UK for Best Design for Happy Days at Sheffield Crucible; winner of Theatre Critics of Wales Award for Praxis Makes Perfect for National Theatre Wales. Nominations: Drama Desk Award for Best Lighting for 1984 on Broadway; Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design for Oresteia; Olivier Award and Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for Prima Facie; Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for The Hills of California. Natasha is a member of the Association of Lighting Designers.
Production: The Olivier Award-winning production of Oedipus, revived at Studio 54 New York; directed by Robert Icke.
Co-designers: Hildegard Bechtler, set design; Tom Gibbons, sound design – both also nominated for Tonys; video design, Tal Yarden
Chivers chats with Live Design about her Tony-nominated lighting:
Click here to see the light plot for Oedipus
Live Design: What was your intent with the design, and where did your inspiration come from?
Natasha Chivers: As a team we have done multiple shows over the past ten years and a style has emerged for very clean and clear storytelling often with light coloured sets and muted tones.
I intended to do a very sculpted design for an elevated version of an office environment using the big window stage left as the directional key light and my inspiration very much comes from what I feel whilst watching rehearsals. It's very instinctive and colors and images just appear along with a sense of what the intensity should be. For example the last scene when Jocasta leaves Oedipus I felt the light should be white hot and quite tight when I saw it. It just felt right. So I guess the bulk of my inspiration comes from the work Rob Icke makes, the cast, and my colleague, sound designer Tom Gibbons, is an inspiration with his choices.
LD: What gear did you rely on for your design choices?
NC: I used Martin Mac Encore CLDs (despite finding them tricky to source) for the general cover as I find the color mixing to be effective and needed shutters to stay off the very white walls as much as possible and for me they are still a work horse for lighting plays.
LD: What was the biggest challenge?
NC: The biggest challenges were: how bright the white walls are; a new partly covered ceiling/ceiling piece (although this ended up being my friend as I started from scratch for NY because of it); and closing down and opening up the large bare space imperceivably.
LD: What do you think made this design so successful?
NC: I think what made it so successful was that using very heavy side light from above made it look very sharp, sculpted and stylish like the people in the show and overall design. Also by ensuring there was always enough front light – mostly keyed in from the sides – so that the faces of the actors and eyes were super clear to access the emotion and story they were telling.