When audiences settle into their seats for Norm Foster’s A Woman’s Love List, they enter a world filled with quick-witted comedy, unexpected transformations and moments of genuine heart. Lighting Designer Alex Sykes helps shape that world—and quietly guides the audience through every shift in time, mood, and emotion.
For Sykes, creating the visual identity of a production is not a matter of following a fixed formula. Each play brings together a different script, director, design team and group of performers, so each requires its own creative approach.
“Often, the visual identity I create comes from conversations with the director, the set, the script and my own taste,” Sykes explains. “There isn’t really an exact formula, if I’m being honest, because each show, each team and each world is so different. I create the visual identity through conversation, research and what my heart is telling me.”
That process begins with the script. Long before the lights are hung or cues are programmed, Sykes searches the text for clues about how the play’s world should look and feel. Some of those clues are found in the playwright’s stage directions, which can establish the location, time of day or circumstances of a scene. Others appear in the dialogue and reveal how the characters experience the world around them.
For A Woman’s Love List, however, the first strong lighting image did not come exclusively from the script. It emerged when Sykes saw Set Designer Megan’s design in January.
“The most distinct image in my mind came to me when I first saw Megan’s set,” Sykes recalls. “The big window and having light streaming through it. It’s such a central element of the stage, and it creates exciting opportunities to showcase time of day, mood and other fun moments throughout the show.”
That window became an important feature in the production’s visual storytelling. Light entering through it can suggest the passing of time, establish atmosphere and transform the feeling of the room. Because the play unfolds over several days, these visual signals help orient the audience without interrupting the comedy’s momentum.
“The lighting for A Woman’s Love List helps bring the audience into the characters’ world,” Sykes says. “The show takes place over several days, and I hope the lighting helps ground the audience in the journey happening on stage.”
That journey begins when two friends create a list of the qualities they believe would make the perfect man. When a mysterious man named Blaze appears, their harmless exercise takes an astonishing turn: he begins changing as the list changes. The premise allows Foster to explore friendship, relationships and expectations while delivering the fast-paced humour for which he is known.
It also creates opportunities for a little theatrical magic.
“There are several moments of magic in this piece, and the lighting, along with the sound, amplifies these moments and gives them a certain sparkle and pop,” Sykes says.
Lighting is especially valuable in a comedy because it can help define a moment without drawing attention away from the performers. A subtle change can prepare the audience for a new emotional direction, while a more pronounced shift can heighten a surprise or underline the sudden transformation of the characters’ circumstances.
Finding the right balance is essential in a play that moves between big laughs and sincere emotion. Sykes uses several techniques to ensure those changes feel connected to the story rather than imposed upon it. “Sometimes it’s simply letting the lighting state change slowly,” Sykes explains. “Other times I might sneak in new elements early so that when they become prominent, they feel less abrupt. Sometimes a stark lighting shift can feel smooth if you add a small sound effect.”
Not every transition needs to be invisible. When the story calls for surprise, an abrupt change can help the audience experience the same jolt as the characters. “Sometimes these changes are meant to be noticeable or abrupt,” Sykes adds. “If a character is startled or surprised by something, we might use an abrupt shift to let the audience feel that same thing.”
These choices are developed in close collaboration with the director and the rest of the creative team. Sykes often joins the design process after the basic set concept is established, but conversations with the director help shape the production’s visual language before anyone arrives at the theatre.
“Those conversations shape many of the initial decisions made before we all get into the space,” Sykes says. “Once we’re in the theatre, there’s tons of collaboration to make sure everyone is getting what they need.”
The technical rehearsal process is where the many individual parts of a production finally meet. The set, costumes, lighting, sound and performances are brought together, often revealing possibilities—or challenges—that could not have been fully anticipated during the planning stages.
For Sykes, those discoveries are not interruptions to the design process. They are an essential part of it. “Every show provides its own distinct challenges,” Sykes says. “How does this exit work? How do we want this transition to feel? That quick change is taking longer than we imagined. All of that, plus the fact that every play tells a different story, means I’m often stretching tools I’ve used in the past into new situations.”
The performers themselves can also inspire changes. Movement, delivery and comic timing all influence how a lighting cue works in practice. A cue imagined from the script may need to shift once an actor discovers the rhythm of a scene.
“I think this happens almost every time I’m creating a show,” Sykes says. “Theatre is a team sport, and when all of us are together during the tech process, new ideas are always being offered and tried. Some stick and others don’t, but shows change a ton once everyone is on stage for the first time.”
Sykes’s path to lighting design began on the performance side of theatre. Their early experience with improv taught them to create stories in the moment before an interest in the production side led to a new creative direction. “My journey in theatre started with improv, where I was creating and telling stories on the fly,” Sykes says. “Eventually, I found my way into the production side of theatre and fell in love with it. Now, while I no longer perform, I’m blending both of those passions together.”
That blend of technology and storytelling is at the heart of lighting design. Modern theatrical equipment offers an enormous range of colours, textures, movements and effects, but Sykes believes the technology should always remain in service of the play.
“It can be really fun to create dazzling lighting effects, but it’s also important to know when those effects need to be tamed down or cut because they simply don’t serve the collective story being told on stage.”
For audiences, the final result can appear effortless. That is both the goal of the design and one of the most common misconceptions about the work. The lighting seen during a performance represents many hours of planning, paperwork, installation, focusing, programming and revision.
Before arriving at the theatre, Sykes determines where the lights will be positioned, what colours will be used and which moments need particular emphasis. Detailed plans are then created for the technicians who hang and focus the equipment and ensure every fixture receives the power and data it needs. “If you look up from your seat, you’ll see a whole bunch of gear, each piece with its own unique purpose that will ideally blend in by the time it reaches the stage,” Sykes says. At Lighthouse Festival, that work happens within an especially tight production schedule. One show finishes on Saturday, and the next is in front of an audience by Wednesday. Within that short turnaround, lighting states may be edited several times—or completely rebuilt—as the creative team refines each scene.
Sykes also works closely with the stage manager to determine the precise moment when every cue should be triggered. The objective is to make all of that careful work disappear into the performance.
“All this work is done so that when audiences sit down for a show, everything blends together and seems effortless,” Sykes says.
In A Woman’s Love List, the lighting may stream through a window, mark a new day, add sparkle to a magical moment or gently carry the audience from laughter into something more heartfelt. Audiences may not consciously notice every shift, but each one helps make the world on stage feel vivid, cohesive and alive.
