Ithaca College Student Wins Regional Theater Award

Christopher Daly, a senior theatrical production arts major, won the Barbizon Award for Theatrical Design Excellence in Lighting at the Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival regional competition, held at Carnegie Mellon University in early January. Daly’s award recognized his work as lighting designer for the Ithaca College Theatre production of A Little Night Music, performed on campus last fall.

Designs submitted for the Barbizon awards were judged on the basis of quality, effectiveness, originality, and excellence. Entries from all over New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia were judged. As a regional winner, Daly is eligible to compete in the national festival, to be held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., in April. Barbizon Inc., a premier theatrical supply house specializing in advanced lighting for professionals, presents the Barbizon awards to give outstanding students national recognition and the opportunity to exhibit their work at the Kennedy Center.

In addition to A Little Night Music, Daly was the lighting designer for the Ithaca College theater productions of Summer and Smoke, Can Can, and Woman and Wallace. He has also served as master electrician for Flora, the Red Menace, light board operator for Quilt, and properties master for Macbeth. Off campus Daly has been a props artisan for Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Massachusetts, an electrician at Syracuse Stage, and a spot operator at Nutmeg Summer Scenes in Connecticut. Daly has been the light shop supervisor at Ithaca College for three years, and he completed a professional internship at Vari*Light Production Services in London, England, receiving a Vari*Light operations certification.

Started in 1969, the Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival (KC/ACTF) is a national theater program involving 18,000 students from colleges and universities nationwide that has served as a catalyst in improving the quality of college theater in the United States. The KC/ACTF has grown into a network of more than 600 academic institutions throughout the country, allowing theater departments and student artists to showcase their work and receive outside assessment by KC/ACTF respondents.

Last year two Ithaca College students, Jennette Kollmann ’00 and Gordon Strain ’00, received Barbizon regional awards for lighting and scene design, respectively. Kollmann went on to win the national award, for which she received a $500 honorarium and an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to meet some of the profession’s top lighting designers and visit the Barbizon offices.

Christopher Daly’s lighting for the Ithaca College Theatre presentation of A Little Night Music was judged the best student lighting design at the regional Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival in January. Daly’s design will compete at the national festival in Washington, D.C., in April.