People, Places, Performances

Francis Reid is a veteran lighting designer, lecturer and writer. After reading science at Edinburgh University, he spent five years in stage and production management including Rep Drama, Touring Opera, Aldeburgh Festival and Edinburgh Fringe. He was lighting director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera throughout the sixties and subsequently designed lighting for over 300 productions including several in Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels, and over 30 in London (musicals such as Man of La Mancha, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Grease, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Anne of Green Gables; plays such as Sleuth, Move Over Mrs Markham, Vieux Cane, Soldiers, Flint, The Happy Apple, Anyone For Denis?) Also many operas and over 60 pantomimes. From 1979 to 1981 he was director of the Theatre Royal in Bury St. Edmunds, and from 1982 to 1987 head of theatre design at Londonís Central School of Art & Design. He has served on the Drama and Dance Advisory Committee of The British Council and the Boards of Norwich Puppet Theatre, Norwich Playhouse, Extemporary Dance Theatre and Festival City Theatres Trust. He taught Lighting Design at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1965 to 1983 and at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal from 1974 to 2006. Francis Reid is author of The Stage Lighting Handbook, now in its 6th edition and translated into Spanish and Swedish. Other titles include The Staging Handbook, Theatre Administration (also in Spanish), Designing For The Theatre, Stages For Tomorrow, Theatre Space, The ABC of Stage Technology, The ABC of Stage Lighting, Lighting The Stage, The ABC of Theatre Jargon, Hearing the Light, Yesterday's Lights, Fading Light, Theatric Tourist, Carry On Fading,Cue 80and Discovering Stage Lighting. He provided the Theatre Buildings entry in Cambridge Guide to World Theatre. A contributor to The Stage and Architectís Journal, he was editor of TABS (1974-1977) and wrote for each of the 56 issues of CUE (1979-1988). He is a Fellow and Doctor of Drama (honoris causa) of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and a Fellow of Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Association of Lighting Designers and ABTT.