The Ruzika Company Celebrates 30 Years of Excellence in Lighting Design and Theatre Consulting

	The Ruzika Company is celebrating 30 years of excellence in lighting design and consulting. Back row: Tom, Toranj, John, Shawn, and Paige. Front row: Travis, Veronica, Kristin, Betty Ann, and Jen.

The Ruzika Company, a multiple award-winning lighting design and theatre consulting studio based in Irvine, California, has just celebrated their 30th year in the business of outstanding lighting designs and theatre consulting projects. During those three decades, company founder Tom Ruzika and his associates have brought their creativity, talent, and experience to bear across a broad range of projects, including hospitality, retail, gaming, residential, educational, theme parks, theatre facility planning, and live entertainment.

It was also 50 years ago this year that Tom Ruzika first touched a stage light, while a sophomore at high school in Southern California. "My school had a 1,400 seat auditorium where I played organ and piano for the concert choirs. I was then hired to be on the crew for a $1 an hour, running the lighting board," Ruzika says. "I would sprint back and forth, playing the pipe organ for the choir, then run lighting cues, and back again to the pipe organ."

Ruzika majored in Drama at Cal Poly Pomona, where he was named Alumni of the year in 1995. Ruzika developed a passion for teaching, joining the faculty at the University of California Irvine in 1974 and developed the lighting design program with his colleague, Cameron Harvey. At the same time, he was designing at South Coast Repertory Theatre and other professional theaters. Then, in 1985, he was awarded his first architectural lighting project, for the new Crystal Court expansion at the South Coast Plaza retail center in Costa Mesa, California, and he took the plunge, leasing office space and starting The Ruzika Company in Orange County.

The Ruzika Company has grown to comprise nine designers plus an office manager. "We have a wonderful team of very talented people. Everyone is a designer in his or her own right. Together there are multiple MFAs and bachelor degrees in theatrical lighting, technical theatre, interior design, and architecture."

"Betty Ann Castaneda, my associate, is the lead architectural lighting designer for interiors; we are celebrating 25 years of collaboration. John Sofranko, my associate theatre consultant, and I have collaborated on multiple projects for almost 30 years. Shawn Fidler, Jen Ozai, and I have over ten years together. Paige Stanley, Ellie Motevalian, and Kristin Neu started as IES student observers. Toranj Noroozi started as an MFA lighting intern," adds Ruzika. "We are fortunate to have such talented, longtime, dedicated loyal people; we work as teams on projects and each of us also do our own projects."

An individual important to the success of The Ruzika Company is Donna Ruzika, Tom's wife of 43 years. Together they have collaborated on many theatrical lighting designs, including 36 years of A Christmas Carol at South Coast Repertory Theatre, and 10 summers of Broadway musicals at the Hollywood Bowl. Tom notes "Donna will be designing her eighteenth season at the Utah Shakespeare Festival this summer, where I was the lighting designer in 1973, during our first year of marriage."

Highlighting any one project, as a standout from the past 30 years is impossible, he says. "I'm proud of any project that looks good and that we've made look good. But I'm very, very proud of my first project, South Coast Plaza Mall. I've been very fortunate to work on the Hard Rock Casinos and Hotels in Florida for over 12 years. There are some high-limit gaming spaces there where the lighting is just beautiful -- well designed and well executed." We have consulted on the design and planning for over 100 theatre facilities, specializing in theatres for academic institutions. It has been an honor to assist schools with planning theatres that allow students to develop their creative and technical talents."

Ruzika also has a long association with Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA), lighting many of the historic buildings as part of the city's revitalization, including the building at 1031 South Broadway where his father worked for 20 years and Tom would visit as a youngster. "I did the very first lighting of adaptive reuse in the first transition from office buildings to residential buildings; that was 1999. At one time we were involved with lighting half to three-quarters of DTLA. We have over a dozen, if not more, historic buildings in DTLA that we have designed and a dozen more coming up in the next month or so."

It has been fun following the business, from themed attractions and casinos to hotels and historic buildings, says Ruzika. "Now, for me, going into a theater or lighting a play is like a vacation. I recently designed the lighting for Spamalot at the Hollywood Bowl, and productions of A Flea in Her Ear, Sondheim on Sondheim, and Red. So, I still have my roots in the theater, where I started 50 years ago."