These awards are being generously sponsored by Clay Paky to recognise the outstanding contribution that lighting and lighting designers make to live performance and television created in the UK. They also honour work across a wide range of rock, theatre, opera and dance as well as four categories of televised work. Another feature of these awards is that each distinct area is being judged in a way deemed appropriate by practitioners in their respective fields.
The ALD advised Clay Paky on how the theatre awards should be decided. There is no way that a group of lighting designers could find time to see enough of the excellent work being produced nationally so the ALD decided to contract a group of professional critics seeing performances on a regular basis.
The work they saw determined what was eligible, and as they are seeing at least three or more performances a week the ALD knew that this would elicit a wide range of possible nominees. This year, for the first time, lighting designers not based in the UK were also considered, as long as their work was produced here, American designers Kevin Adams (Spring Awakening) and Natasha Katz (Sister Act) and Israeli designer Itzik Galili (A Linha Curva) are among the nominees for this year's Knights of Illumination Lighting Design Awards.
Theatre nominations
Dance:
Itzik Galili for A Linha Curva - Rambert Dance Company
Michael Hulls for Eonnagata - Sadler's Wells
Peter Mumford for Pictures at an Exhibition - Young Vic
Honourable mentions:
Lucy Carter (winner in 2008) for Infra, Dido and Aeneas - Royal Ballet
Tim Mitchell for Hamlet - Northern Ballet Theatre
John B. Read for Sensorium - Royal Ballet
Opera
Guy Hoare for The Magic Flute - English Touring Opera
Peter Mumford for Prima Donna - Manchester International Festival
Adam Silverman for Peter Grimes - ENO
Honourable mention:
Jon Clark for Into the Hill - Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House
Drama
Neil Austin (winner 2008) for Twelfth Night - Donmar at Wyndhams
Jon Clark for Three Days of Rain - Apollo
Paule Constable (winner 2008) for Death and the King's Horseman - NT
Honourable mentions:
Paule Constable for The Chalk Garden - Donmar & Phedre - NT
Rick Fisher for The Family Reunion - Donmar
Tim Mitchell for Hamlet - RSC
Peter Mumford for View from the Bridge - Duke of York's
Hansjorg Schmidt for Kursk - Young Vic
Drama:
Kevin Adams for Spring Awakening - Lyric Hammersmith/Novello
Neil Austin (winner 2008) for Piaf - Donmar
Natasha Katz for Sister Act - London Palladium
Honourable mention:
Jon Clark for Street Scene and Been So Long - Young Vic
Paule Constable for Oliver! - Theatre Royal Drury Lane
The Judges for the Theatre sections were: David Benedict - UK correspondent for Variety, and panel chair, Michael Coveney - theatre critic, Whatsonstage.com, Jenny Gilbert - dance critic, Independent on Sunday, Ash Khandekar - editor, Opera Now, Louise Levene - dance critic, Sunday Telegraph and Fiona Maddocks - opera critic, The Observer.
Once again the critics keen to be able to talk about the often overlooked contribution that is made by lighting to productions. They were most mindful of how often praise for lighting falls victim to the severe space restrictions in their publications and welcomed the Clay Paky Knights of Illumination awards as an opportunity to redress this situation.
All members of the panel remarked how judging
