Christopher E. Wong accepts lighting internship at Williamstown Theatre Festival for summer 2016

This week, third-year Theatre major Christopher E. Wong accepted a lighting internship at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, MA. 

This week, third-year Theatre major Christopher E. Wong accepted a lighting internship at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, MA. 

Christopher will be working at the festival all summer, from June to August. As a lighting intern, he will implement the daily tasks required to run the seven-show season, with changeovers and focuses. The program emphasizes its educational focus, and interns become directly involved in the design process.

The Williamstown Theatre Festival has been running since 1955, and it is known as the nation’s premiere summer stock program. Each WTF season is designed to present unique opportunities for artists and audience—they stage classic plays with innovative productions, develop and nurture bold new works, and offer an array of cultural events to accompany the productions. A handful of designers on Broadway have roots at Williamstown, and the internship program is meant to train and prepare young designers for the rigors of the industry. The interns are pushed to their limits, and encouraged to surpass them.

Having just worked as a Lighting Apprentice at the Santa Fe Opera (one of the world’s premiere opera venues) last summer, Christopher is excited to implement the meticulous skills, extraordinary patience, and driving stamina he has learned in the new environment he will work in at Williamstown. He will have the opportunity to work with many award-winning designers on a daring season of seven productions including, “The Rose Tattoo,” “Romance Novels for Dummies,” “An American Daughter,” “Cost of Living,” “The Chinese Room,” and “Poster Boy.” He says that will miss not overlooking the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico this year, but has no doubt the Berkshire Mountains are just as great!

Christopher will graduate from UMD TDPS in May 2017, and his goal is to develop a career in lighting design for the theatre. However, he plans on first spending a couple of years working in the industry, before going to graduate school to hone his design instinct, process, and practice.

Christopher would like to thank his mentors, Professor Brian MacDevitt (TDPS Design faculty) and Max Doolittle (MFA Design candidate), for their unwavering support.

For more information about the Williamstown Theatre Festival, visit: http://wtfestival.org.

Christopher Wong focusing at the Santa Fe Opera 2015

By Kate Spanos