Sarah Jakubasz, Lighting Designer
This is Sarah’s second year working with EGB on Project Earth Day. Sarah is a designer with Lightswitch. Lightswitch is a design consortium with experience in projection and lighting design ranging from architectural, corporate and theatrical lighting projects. She has worked for the last few years on Chrysler LLC’s auto show booths in Detroit, Chicago and New York. Some of her past theatrical credits include Mudblossom at Walkerspace, Venus at Muhlenberg College, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Skinpoppin’ at The Red Room, Eccentricities of a Nightingale at the Columbia MFA program, Golden Age at The Krane Theatre, Madame Douce-Amere at the Philly Fringe and Walnut Street Studios, The Witching Hour at Williamstown Theatre Festival, School for Scandal at Gallery Players in Brooklyn. Sarah has worked extensively as an Assistant Lighting Designer Off Broadway and Regionally. She has worked at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Lincoln Center Out of Doors and the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Conference. She is a member of United Scenic Artists 829.
The lighting for Project Earth Day uses many different applications of what we consider as green lighting. Green lighting in the entertainment industry incorporates the newest available technology. In the show we use Color Kinetics Colorblazes to light the scenery behind the runway. Each one of these fixtures consumes 420w of electricity when all three colors of LED’s are on. The halogen counterpart of this light consumes 750w PER color, for a total wattage of 2,250w when all of them are on. The LED technology also allows the opportunity to mix colors using an additive mixing system. The design also incorporates the use of compact fluorescents for accent lighting at the bar. There are also LED fluorescent replacement tubes from Bartco and HID source four units from Electronic Theatre Controls used within the merchandise area. Both of these options have significantly lower power consumption then their fluorescent/halogen counterparts. The stage lighting used to illuminate the runway is halogen, but is a highly efficient fixture, focusing 95% of the light out of the front of the unit. This means you can use fewer units to accomplish the same illumination. All of these tools allow for a high quality of design while keeping power consumption low. Being green in lighting is about choosing the best light for your application and not choosing something solely by the power consumption. The right fixture for the right task can have a greater impact then twenty wrong lights for one application.