”Life’s A Banquet And Most Poor Sons Of Bit@#es Are Starving To Death” Ken Billington on Lighting Life

Ken (kbany.com) has designed nearly 100 Broadway productions including Act One, Chaplin, Hugh Jackman Back on Broadway, The Scottsboro Boys, Sondheim on Sondheim, [Title of Show], The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe starring Lily Tomlin, Footloose, Candide(1997), Annie (1997), Annie Warbucks, Inherit the Wind, Moon Over Buffalo, The Red Shoes, Fiddler on the Roof (1990, 81,76), Lettice and Lovage, Tru, Meet Me in St. Louis, On the 20th Century, Side by Side by Sondheim among others. He has been honored with seven Tony award nominations and received the 1997 Tony Award for his work on Chicago. His Tony nominations include: Sunday in the Park with George(2008), The Drowsy Chaperone (2006), End of the World (1984), Foxfire(1982), Sweeney Todd (1979), Working (1978), and The Visit (1973). For a complete list of Broadway shows go to www.idbd.com.

Off-Broadway he has many productions to his credit including Nikolai and the Others, Fame, The Thing About Men, Sylvia, London Suite, Annie Warbucks, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, The Lisbon Traviata, Snoopy and Fortune in Men’s Eyes. For a more complete list go to www.lortel.org/lla_archive

Ken works in all forms of theatrical lighting including opera, dance, concerts and spectaculars. 13 productions for the NY City Opera including: Candide, the American premiers of Silverlake, The Voice of Ariadne and Ashmedai. For the Houston Grand Opera 31 productions including the world premier of Willie Stark and Aida for the opening of the Worthem Center Brown Theatre. Other companies include Dallas Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, La Scala, Theatro Real in Madrid and Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires.

Some of the great entertainers that Ken has lit include Hugh Jackman, Ann-Margret, Shirley MacLane, Liberace, Sigfried and Roy, Juliet Prowse, Chita Rivera and Lisa Minelli to name just a few.

For 27 years the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular had lighting by Ken Billington as well as the annual Easter Show. Other spectaculars include the relighting of Jubilee at Bally’s Las Vegas in 2004, Fantasmic! at Disneyland, Shamu Night shows at the Seaworld Parks and Illuminights at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.

Ken has been received many awards including the Ace Award for Television Lighting, the Luman Award for Architectural Lighting and many theatre awards including the Tony, NY Drama Desk, Los Angeles Drama Critics and Boston Drama Critics, to name a few.