Lighting Designer Artist Categories

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Fumiko Bielefeldt

Performing Artist: Lighting Designer, Stage Director

Bielefeldt, a native of Japan, has a bachelor’s degree in economics, but came to a career in costume design when she was taking classes at Stanford University, where her husband was teaching. Out of curiosity, she took a costume design course at Stanford that piqued her interest. After Stanford, she did a year’s internship at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre. “Then after that, it just happened my supervisor at Stanford–he was the one who really started my career and gave my name to TheatreWorks,” Bielefeldt says. TheatreWorks’ artistic director Robert Kelley gave her her first job costuming a show. Among the many productions she has designed that she counts as favorites are shows that represent a diverse array of times and places, from the 19th-century Japan of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Pacific Overtures to the 18th-century France of Triumph of Love: the musical; contemporary India (Baby Taj); 1930s New York City (The Learned Ladies of Park Avenue); 19th-century Scandinavia (Miss Julie) and another play based on an Austen novel, Emma: A musical romance.

Natti Pierce-Thomson

Performing Artist: Lighting Designer

I love solving a problem. Doesn’t matter what it is. I enjoy thinking outside the box. For me, it’s about helping people. It’s about leaving the world a better place. It’s never about the fame or fortune. It’s about the Art.

Joe Ragey

Performing Artist: Lighting Designer, Set Designer; Visual Artist: Painter

I paint “alla prima” working on location and in the studio. My work centers on creating the effects of light found in nature. I paint landscapes and seascapes capturing the scenic vistas of the California west coast. In the studio, I work on larger salon sized paintings, from small ‘alla prima” studies done on location. The paintings of French, Russian, American Impressionists, and in particular, the early California Impressionists influences my work. Some of the artist’s that I admire include, Joaquin Sorolla, John Singer Sargent, Charles Hawthorne and Guy Rose. As a painter it is important for me to capture the unique California light at various times of the day and year, under a variety of lighting conditions.

Michael F. Ramsaur

Educator; Performing Artist: Lighting Designer, Set Designer

Michael Ramsaur is a professor of lighting design at Stanford University. He also serves as an Honorary Professor at the Central Academy of Drama, Beijing and has taught regularly at the Bavarian Theater Academy Munich and as a Guest Professor at the University of Arts Belgrade in the Interdisciplinary Program in Theater Design and at Trinity College, Dublin. Professor Ramsaur was awarded a Fulbright Grant and has given lectures or workshop in 19 countries. He has had a 40-year career in theater including owning and operating San Francisco Theatrical Supply, a stage lighting sales and rental company. He has served as Lighting Designer, designing over 200 productions for many theater companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Berkeley Repertory Theater, San Jose Civic Light Opera, West Bay Opera, Scholar Opera, Lamplighters, TheatreWorks, and the Broadway by the Bay where he is the resident lighting designer having designed over 70 productions. He has been awarded Outstanding Lighting Design awards from the San Francisco Bay Area Critics, Dean Goodman Award, and Drama Logue Awards. His articles on lighting techniques have been published in three countries and he has created a computerized software program to aid lighting designers.

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