With bare: a pop opera opening this upcoming Thursday, we asked guest lighting designer Dani Norberg a few questions about her process working on the show.
Dani Norberg first began thinking about lighting when she was a dancer as a little kid, feeling jealous that all the older kids got fun colors and props for their dances. Later, when she was in high school, she would wander backstage during rehearsals for shows she was acting in, entranced by all of the fun power tools. Norberg then switched to doing tech only, working in the shop at her school and then in local theaters where she was living at the time. What finally got her into designing her own shows was deciding to go back to school. Norberg says she “just got to the point where I was like having fun hanging the lights but I was like ‘why would you do that? I don’t like this choice. I would make a different choice. How come I don’t get to make the choices?’”
When it comes to her work on shows, Norberg relies on a lot of discussion with the director and other designers. She says that with a complicated script “you can always find a dozen different things [to focus on] and pick which ones you want to pay attention to and which you don’t and I think a lot of it comes from the directors and the other designers. I really do lean into the collaboration side of things.” Especially with a show that has an elaborate set like bare, Norberg really has to wait a while to begin her work that will eventually help bring the show to life: “there’s a lot of procrastinating for the purpose of art; the longer I think about it, the more ideas I come up with.”
Some of the biggest challenges with lighting design, according to Norberg, are things like speakers being in the way, and “physics. I can’t change physics. I want to.” But oftentimes changing things to work around those barriers produces some of Norberg’s favorite work. She is confident that the lighting in bare has a lot of promise, and is really excited to see how it will turn out.
To see how Dani’s lighting brings the show to life, buy tickets for bare: a pop opera HERE! The show runs November 10-13 on the Alexander Stage