Tony-nominated lighting designer Isabella Byrd is not afraid of the dark

Broadway.com features UC College-Conservatory of Music alumna Isabella Byrd (BFA Lighting Design and Technology, ’09) ahead of the 2024 Tony Awards. Byrd received two Tony Award Nominations — Best Lighting Design of a Play for An Enemy of the People and Best Lighting Design of a Musical for Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club.

"A few years ago, Byrd started calling herself a “darkness designer.” She favors the singular, essential lighting gesture over spectacle for the sake of it, hanging fewer lights than other designers and often coaxing performers out of the shadows with the bare minimum of brightness. She’s into low lighting the way the playwright Annie Baker is fond of pregnant silences.

Her reasons are as aesthetical as they are physiological, based in an understanding of our natural circadian rhythms and night-vision abilities. 'Darkness activates our humanity,' she said. 'If we actually just pull back a little bit, we can see better. We can listen better, we can connect better.' " (via Broadway.com)

Byrd also recently won a special award in the 2024 Drama Desk Awards.

Featured image at the top: Gayle Rankin and the cast of “Cabaret”. Photo: Marc Brenner.