John Shaller : Lighting up the Theatre

My wife Waeow, our son, Tawan and I, moved to Friday Harbor from Thailand in 2009 to be near my mom, Nora. Not long after, my son was in the Merry Firebird and I volunteered to help backstage. I started chatting with Steve [Judson] and told him I’d studied technical theater in college but I’d gotten kind distracted with computer programming as a career.

Steve later asked me to help with lighting The Dining Room. That led to designing the lighting for The Connoisseurs, I’ll Be Back Before Midnight and Stars Lore.

I really enjoy lighting the productions. It’s artistic but technical at the same time. For instance, in I’ll Be Back Before Midnight, there was a lot of mood lighting and it could be challenging. As Steve said once, “it takes a lot of lights to make it so dark.” Steve has been great in letting me work on my own--giving me lots of free reign to be creative.

I highly recommend volunteering at the Theatre. I’m ready for the next project!