So you want my arts job: Lighting designer

To work well as a lighting designer you need to be able to pick up on the emotional cues of the work you’re watching, says Richard Vabre.

Richard Vabre is a freelance Lighting Designer for live performance. He is based in Melbourne and has almost 20 years’ experience designing across all modes of live performance including theatre, opera, dance, experiential installation and circus. Vabre has won five Green Room Awards, including the John Truscott Prize for Excellence in Design, and has been nominated for a further 10 Green Room Awards.

I’d probably also devise a test to see if they could achieve endless variety out of a few key ingredients – ‘See how many different shapes you can make out of these five coloured blocks,’ for example…

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's former National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the 2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in early 2020. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association in 2021, and a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Photo: Fiona Hamilton. Follow Richard on Bluesky @richardthewatts.bsky.social and Instagram @richard.l.watts