The role of the ‘Standard Rig’ in illuminating a production of Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men (1954)

Lighting is one of the most ephemeral elements in a theatre production. Lighting is cued, illuminates objects in space and is gone. This temporal aspect is reinforced throughout the design process – costumes are sketched and swatches acquired, actor’s movements and lines are recorded, sets are detailed and constructed, yet the physicality of lighting is illusive. The lighting designer’s primary artefact articulating their intentions is a lighting plan, yet this document is often already constructed in a standardised form by the performance venue. This paper examines the lighting design for Twelve Angry Men presented at the Zenith Theatre, Sydney and the impact of a ‘standard rig’ on the process for realising the illumination of this production. The lighting designer’s experience will be used as a platform to evaluate the functions of a standard rig in contemporary community theatre practice. The paper briefly discusses, through a practice led research project, the intersection of the creative praxis of the lighting designer and the standards many venues impose upon the realisation of the illumination of any given production.