Joseph Dingle

In July 2024, I worked under the supervision of Paul D. Birks, as lighting designer on Six the Musical, at The Malthouse Theatre. Since then, I have continued to design for the company, most recently designing, programming, and operating School of Rock at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury.

I worked alongside lighting designer Paul D. Birks programming lighting for a Dance showcase, with detailed effects and pixel mapping across different musical and dance genres. I also worked as a lighting design associate on Loveland, a musical theatre showcase.

I aided in load-ins, rigging setup alongside moving light maintenance.

I have taken a more senior role within this school activity as I can now lead, teach and help younger students understand more about technical theatre.

This requires planning and thinking about how each session can be insightful, entertaining and importantly fun. This means, ensuring everyone is and feels included within the group, I minimise roles and other selections based on age or seniority but on trust and reliability. When I started with this group we were quite small but now every session has been full and popular with around 20 attendees depending on the day.

I shadowed the work of lighting designer Paul Williams, better known for his work in the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, and with Roz Malyom, head of lighting operation for Cadogan Hall.

As a Deputy Stage Manager, I worked closely with the production director and with the communication to all departments, this keeping productions running and on time. I would also lead the backstage crew, making sure everyone understands what's happening. Parts of my role were to give backstage calls to dressing rooms, manage front of house, to 'call the show' This meant, following my own annotated script to prompt lighting, sound, and stagehand cues. And also be prepared to act quickly and reasonably to potential unforeseen problems on stage during performances.