Medusa

Innocence

In April of 2025, I worked with Four Letter Word to create the lighting design for their original performance of Medusa by Bronte Lemaire. This show was performed in the Union Theatre at The University of Melbourne.

Medusa is an original play that reimagines the greek myth of Medusa in a contemporary context, using the story to create “a striking exploration of power and gender in the modern day.”

The set for Medusa consisted of drapery, as well as 6 on stage full-length mirrors. The mirrors offered both a challenge and a benefit for the lighting design of this play, requiring lots of work-around to avoid blinding the audience but creating a beautiful onstage effect at the same time. This was a very colourful show, the mystical and mythological themes lending themselves well to bold, saturated use of light to enhance the boldness of the action, as well as underpin particular narrative motifs throughout the performance.

For Medusa, I fulfilled the roles of Lighting Designer, Operator and Electrician.

This show was programmed on a ETC ION XE Lighting Console in a 398-seat pros-arch theatre.

Again, Specifically focused and rehearsed specials denote characters freezing into stone statues.

Transformation, This lighting sequence was synced with the sound design and involved a series of auto-cues that utilised custom-built lighting effects to create an intense flashing sequence.

The Festival, Coloured motifs on the drapes denoted the presence of particular Gods in each scene.

Prayer, Focusing lights inwards on character action to shrink the vast expanse of the Union stage was necessary to maintian the intimacy of the story.

Photography credit to Hayley Francis D’Amour & Yongyi Zhu.