ETC LDI 2010 Student-Sponsorship Applications Available -- Online or at USITT

ETC's successful LDI Student Sponsorship program, is heading into its 11th year (and 66 alumni strong). Each year ETC selects six college students to attend the LDI trade show with the staff members -- all expenses paid. LDI 2010 will take place in Las Vegas, October 22-24th. The Sponsorship includes roundtrip airfare, hotel accommodations, all meals, a full conference pass, an exclusive student reception, and for-Sponsorship-students-only ETC swag. The lucky recipients will get front-row seats on the latest developments in entertainment technology, go behind the scenes of ETC's trade show efforts, and meet major industry players (famous lighting designers, educators and consultants, corporate movers, and influential journalists).

Current graduate students or senior undergrads in lighting design, theatre technology or closely related fields are encouraged to apply. Applications can be download at ETC's website listed below; hard copies will be at ETC's USITT booth (#630) or ETC Connect lounge, March 31st-April 2nd. The application-submission deadline is April 30th, 2010.

ETC's LDI Sponsorship alumni represent a diversity of professional paths. Here's a sampling of alumni of the program and where they are now: R. Brad Criswell (ETC LDI Sponsorship 2001) went on to take a position as professor/resident lighting designer with Millikin University in 2004. In 2007, he moved to Chicago, working as a freelance LD/moving-light programmer with clients like the James Taylor One Man Band Tour, the Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, and the Cumberland County Playhouse of Tennessee. He recently tuned in to high-ratings TV -- as an assistant LD for Harpo Studios and The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Julie Ballard (ETC LDI Sponsorship 2002) is lighting supervisor for the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago and is also a busy freelancer. She has taken her work far abroad -- even venturing to do lighting design for a dance festival in Siberia. Recently she helped convert an old truck warehouse into a performance space for Convergence, a dance show featuring The Seldoms. Parlaying her creative energy and expertise further, Julie is now expanding into media design.

ETC LDI 2005 sponsorship-recipient D.J. Selmeyer moved from the Midwest to Arizona to work as a lighting designer and programmer for the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes. He also freelances as a lighting and set designer throughout the valley, and in 2008, won the AriZoni Theatre Award for best lighting design on a Peoria production of Ain't Misbehavin. His fellow ETC LDI 2005 alum Andrew Cissna, meanwhile, is working as a freelance lighting designer in the Washington, DC area, designing and assisting at Ford's Theatre, the Tony Award-winning regional Signature Theatre, The Kennedy Center, and other venues. He has recently returned from assisting at the Humana Festival in Louisville, KY, and also received a 2008 Helen Hayes award nomination for his work on 1984.

Ian Garrett, ETC LDI Sponsorship alum, Class of 2006, saw a different, 'greener' path in a global industry initiative. "After being an ETC sponsorship recipient," explains Ian, "I began to focus more and more on issues of sustainability in the arts, especially theatre. In 2008, I co-founded the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts -- speaking, teaching about, and consulting on environmental issues as they pertain to entertainment technology. This past December I traveled to Copenhagen to participate in the cultural offerings surrounding the UN climate change conference and am on faculty at the California Institute of the Arts. I've also been using my lighting and design background to contribute to the development of sustainability standards for theatrical production, working with partners across the US, Canada, the UK, Denmark and the Czech Republic. In fact, I'll be helping to program the lighting workshops for Scenofest at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial. ETC has actually inspired some of my ideas since the beginning. Some of my first conversations about the direction lighting was heading in -- in terms of sustainability -- were with ETC's fixture manager Tom Littrell during my sponsorship back at LDI in 2006."

And the famous lights of Las Vegas too are now influenced by an ETC LDI Sponsorship alum -- Class of 2007's Jason Read, who is the associate lighting designer for the new Barry Manilow production opening in March at the Paris. Jason resides in Los Angeles and is a lighting designer at Lightswitch. He was also LD for four attractions in an upcoming theme park in Seoul, Korea.