LAS VEGAS — The governing body of the Parnelli Awards announces that David Cunningham will be the 2015 recipient of the Parnelli Visionary Award for his outstanding career and scores of innovations in lighting. “David is a true innovator, and has continually generated important breakthroughs,” says Parnelli Awards producer and PLSN publisher Terry Lowe. “In addition to being one of the most brilliant members of our community, he’s also one of the most interesting, and we look forward to honoring him at the show.”
“I am delighted that we are honoring David for his contribution to our industry,” says Parnelli Awards chairman Marshall Bissett. “It’s hard to imagine lighting a show without using at least one of his inventions. He looks at standard practice and says, ‘There must be a better way.’ He created landmark products, and along the way he has answered the age-old question of how many people does it take to change a light bulb: Only one if his name is David Cunningham.”
“I did a lot of things I didn’t know I couldn’t do,” Cunningham says. He taught himself to write code for the first computer-based lighting consoles. When told by a major lighting company that there wasn’t a new light source he could possibly imagine that they didn’t already have, he came back with one that became the basis of the Source Four.
Out of college in the 1970s, Cunningham was with Strand, where he developed the Multi Q, the first commercial lighting board with a memory system. After it was used in A Chorus Line, every Broadway house seemed to want one. While at Strand, he also developed the CD80 dimmer in 1980, which eliminated patching per channel and radically brought down the price of dimmers.
“He is one of the smartest men I’ve ever met, in addition to being one of the most interesting characters,” says ETC’s Fred Foster. “The CD80 dimmer was a watershed moment that changed everything,” Foster says. “Prior to that dimmer costs were up to $1,000 a channel. Cunningham got the price down to $300 a channel, and got rid of the patch panel to boot. It was brilliant.” While at Strand, he would develop a strong relationship with Wally Russell, who encouraged and inspired Cunningham until Russell died in 1992.
After Strand, Cunningham worked briefly with ColorTran before heading out on his own, starting Entertec with Gregg Esakoff. There he assembled and led a masterful team of talent. Out of that group came what would be the Source Four. First released to market by ETC in 1992, it had revolutionary lamp and reflector and a rotating interchangeable shutter barrel. Likely the best selling theatrical lamp in history, millions have been sold to date.
Cunningham is a bit stumped when asked to describe his creative process. “You have an idea in your head about what the key features of a new product will be,” he explains. “Like a Source Four — you want it to put out more light and use less energy. You want a shutter assembly to rotate … that’s in your head. It’s based on what will benefit the user, and you conceptualize it there, in the hands of who needs it. Then it’s a matter of pulling the team together, making sure everyone is working in their area toward the goal.”
While working with ETC, the company bought LMI, a dimmer company, and they put out the Sensor, a compact dimmer system. In 1996, Cunningham took a hiatus and focused on more artistic projections, but is understandably proud his Entertec team was absorbed by ETC, where they continue to work together today. Cunningham has gone back and forth a few times in the ensuing years to work on new products with ETC and is currently working on some now.
The 2015 Parnelli Awards will be held on Oct. 24 at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. For more information, go to www.parnelliawards.com.
