LAS VEGAS – Each year, ETC selects six college students to attend the LDI tradeshow, which is set for Oct. 22-24 in Las Vegas this year. The deadline is April 30, and applications are available now, on ETC's Web site. Applications will also be available at the USITT show in Kansas City March 31-April 3. Along with free airfare, hotel, meals, conference pass and a student reception, students get a close look at the latest developments in entertainment technology and the chance to meet with LDs and others.
ETC provided a "where are they now?" synopsis of a few of the students chosen in past years.
R. Brad Criswell (2001) went on to take a position as professor/resident lighting designer with Millikin University in 2004. In 2007, he moved to Chicago, working as a freelance LD/moving-light programmer with clients like the James Taylor One Man Band Tour, the Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, and the Cumberland County Playhouse of Tennessee. He recently served as assistant lighting director for Harpo Studios and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Julie Ballard (2002) is lighting supervisor for the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago and is also a busy freelancer. She has taken her work abroad – even venturing to do lighting design for a dance festival in Siberia. Recently she helped convert an old truck warehouse into a performance space for Convergence, a dance show featuring The Seldoms, and is now expanding into media design.
D.J. Selmeyer (2005) has served as lighting designer and programmer for the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes. He also freelances as a lighting and set designer, and in 2008, won the AriZoni Theatre Award for best lighting design on a Peoria production of Ain't Misbehavin.'
Andrew Cissna (2005) is working as a freelance lighting designer in the Washington, DC area, designing and assisting at Ford's Theatre, the Signature Theatre, The Kennedy Center, and other venues. He has recently returned from assisting at the Humana Festival in Louisville, KY, and also received a 2008 Helen Hayes award nomination for his work on 1984.
Ian Garrett (2006) co-founded the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (www.sustainablepractice.org) in 2008 and traveled to COP15 in Copenhagen. He's a faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts and has worked with others in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Denmark and the Czech Republic. He's now helping with Scenofest at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial. He credits ETC fixture manager Tom Littrell and the 2006 sponsorship for their influence on his career.
Jason Read (2007) is the associate lighting designer for the Barry Manilow production at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino. Read lives in Los Angeles and is a lighting designer at Lightswitch, an architectural and theatrical lighting design firm. He was also LD for four attractions in an upcoming theme park in Seoul, Korea.
For more information, please visit www.etcconnect.com.
