'Dear Evan Hansen' lighting designer shares secrets

Ilana Keller | Asbury Park Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Dear Evan Hansen, Waving Through a Window Ben Platt plays the title character in "Dear Evan Hansen." featuring a book by Steven Levenson, and extraordinary emo-pop songs by “La La Land” lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

Editor's note: In this interview with lighting director Japhy Weideman, certain parts of "Dear Evan Hansen" are discussed. Consider this a spoiler alert for those who have not seen the show and are planning to go.

Each scene of "Dear Evan Hansen" paints a rich, full emotional picture.

Turn up the overhead lights, though, and you'll see an empty black stage, LED screens, a few scrims and some tracks.

Largely absent are the massive set pieces, furniture and multitude of props that long have created the environments of traditional musicals.

"Now we’re in a world where light is scenery," said the show's Tony-nominated lighting director Japhy Weideman. "We create the world. It’s not 'here’s the set, light it.' It’s 'here’s an empty canvas, create it.' I love working that way. I think it opens many more possibilities for the imagination, and especially for this show. (It) works very well to connect with the audience, younger audiences, too, that live in the world of iPhones and computers, where everything is moving very, very rapidly."

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The way Weideman, working in conjunction with projection designer Peter Nigrini and set designer David Korins, paints the set using light to craft a vast range of visual and emotional backdrops. "Dear Evan Hansen" is written by Steven Levenson, with music by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, all of whom also are up for Tonys.

"The story consists of a kind of diverse emotional and physical language that’s required to create all of the different themes as well as emotional states, particularly with Ben Platt’s character, Evan. The lighting spans anywhere from the intimate loneliness of him sitting on his bed, looking at his computer screen, only lit by the computer, to everything in between. Being at the school, it’s a more public space, it’s more open. In the principal’s office, light comes through the blinds of the window. The Murphys, the parents of Connor, the opulent quality of their living room — even though you only have a sofa in their living room, you still have with the palettes of their clothing and the two pieces of furniture that are on the stage ... The way we can shape the light and use the angle, we can create a more affluent quality of light for those scenes.

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"In the end you get the full expanse of the sky completely opening up and you get this vast field of light that opens up, and when you have that experience where the walls open and you hear the music swell as the light comes pouring out across the stage and into the audience, it’s really a cathartic experience."

While offering opportunity, Weideman says there also are new challenges to working around the LED panels and projections.

"It is very challenging because one of the primary technical challenges I had is keeping the light contained in a way that doesn’t directly hit any of these screens. There would be times I would hit the screens directly, but if I did it it needed to look like an intentional shaft of light, whether it’s sunlight or moonlight, or some kind of abstract image that hits the panel. If it did hit it, it couldn’t just be residual light. I had to have an incredibly flexible lighting system that I could easily shape and refocus."

Weideman says working in conjunction with Korins and Nigrini, as well as director Michael Greif and the rest of the creative team, led to a collaborative process that doesn't necessarily exist to the same degree with a more traditional set.

"There's always endless discussion throughout the process. If you’re lighting a set that’s a big chandelier and a lot of opulent furniture and wallpaper, you’re never having those kinds of conversations. You’re essentially just adjusting the light for the physical objects and material in the room. You’re not creating it."

Weideman, who grew up on a farm in North Carolina, says it was traveling to New Mexico that largely sparked his love of light.

"...When I went to the Southwest for the first time, I was deeply affected by the sense of space and the clarity of the light, and the sky, and the intense color of the sunrises and sunsets, and how almost every single day you get these incredible painted skies and every day is completely different."

He graduated from the University of New Mexico, and has worked around the world as a lighting designer, garnering multiple Tony Award nominations among other awards. His work currently can be seen in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and he has worked on Broadway productions including "Significant Other," "Bright Star," "The Nance," "The Heidi Chronicles" and many others.

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When approaching a project like "Dear Evan Hansen," Weideman says he starts by listening to the music, then reading the script before meeting with other designers in order to have his own sense of the "emotional flavor" of the show. They then storyboard the sequences, which are developed into a physical layout and a lighting configuration.

"All of that gets installed in the theater, and then you start at day one, with him sitting on the bed looking at the computer," he said. "As the songs develop, sort of sculpting and creating and really working intuitively and emotionally with what’s happening in the room to dream up any kind of quality you might want to create. If I hear that music, I can interpret that into visual energy."

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Pairing music and light to create a particular mood goes hand-in-hand, Weideman says.

"Light and sound are mystically and intricately connected. They are two vibrations of energy, one is visual and one is audible. You know if you hear a certain sound, a really deep bass sound and you have a really bright yellow light, it doesn’t really match. You go into deeper blue/indigo tones with that deeper sound, then it starts to match. When you introduce video in that, Pete and I together could create these full immersive experiences of light and sound and information."

The Tony Awards air June 11 at 8 p.m. on CBS.

Ilana Keller: 732-643-4260; ikeller@gannettnj.com

DEAR EVAN HANSEN

WHERE: Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St., New York

TICKETS: $79 to $175

INFO: 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com