It’s not every day you get flown to Paris for a conference and book release party, so when Jess Greenberg ‘12G posted a selfie on social media doing just that, we were curious to find out more.
Greenberg, a lighting designer and Chair of the School of Performing Arts at Weber State University in Utah, is among 65 female lighting professionals profiled in the just-released book, Collected Light Volume Three: Women in Entertainment Lighting.
“Even though women pioneered (lighting design), the industry has shifted so that it's very much male-dominated,” Greenberg said. The book, a collaboration between Women in Lighting and the Light Collective, two Europe-based networking organizations for the lighting industry, is meant as a corrective.
“Let me highlight that the book celebrates not just lighting designers,” Greenberg noted: it includes production electricians, programmers, and technicians. The focus is wider than theater, covering concert, architectural and industrial lighting. “I love that it's featuring a range of all the different disciplines that are under the category of lighting,” she said.
She also likes that it includes women at different career stages, from designer Jennifer Tipton, whose work spans decades and who has Tonys and a MacArthur Genius grant to her credit, to an Irish lighting technician in her 20s.
The book launch was the centerpiece of a conference organized by Women in Lighting and the Light Collective and bankrolled by Ayrton Lighting. The Paris-based company makes moving lights and is big in the concert field. Ayrton flew all the women featured in the book to Paris, providing accommodations and sponsoring the slate of speakers on various topics relating to lighting.
Greenberg has been involved with Women in Lighting and the Light Collective for about five years. There's a lot of overlap in membership, but the latter exists to “celebrate and elevate women in lighting and create a networking platform for people to connect with each other,” according to Greenberg.
A friend told her about Women in Lighting. She’s profiled on the website and is listed as someone who is willing to mentor up and coming women in the field. The Light Collective, meanwhile, selected her as one of the professionals featured in its “40 Under 40” contest in 2022.
“I submitted my work at 39 and a half, and I was selected,” she noted, amused. That honor also included a trip — in this case to Filix Lighting’s factory in Croatia. Greenberg said her recognition in 2022 led to her inclusion in the book.
Greenberg came to lighting almost by happenstance. She studied theater at Hampshire College but was more interested in acting and directing until, as a junior, a classmate asked if she’d light a show for them.
“At Hampshire College, bless them, we were allowed to be quite feral and do what we pleased, and so there was no barrier to entry to me tackling this project,” she said, noting that she turned to Smith College faculty member Nan Zhang for mentoring on the project.
It was a revelation. “I was able to light this student play, and it just sparked. I felt like I discovered this language that I didn't know that I spoke!” Greenberg said.
From there, hungry to learn more and at the urging of Margo Caddell, a fellow UMass lighting MFA alum, she talked her way into UMass Theater Professor Emeritus Penny Remsen’s graduate lighting design class as a senior.
Greenberg was immediately in over her head. “I remember how very behind I felt in that class because I was trying to catch up on this lighting knowledge, because I had been on a different track. I was very intimidated, and I was very self-conscious,” she said. Remsen picked up on her mood one day after class and asked if she had a question. Greenberg said, “If I stopped you every time I didn't understand something we wouldn't have class, because I'm feeling really behind.”
Remsen’s response was “so, write down your questions and ask to meet with me, and I will answer all your questions.”
That’s exactly what happened. “She just had faith in me and she was going help me. And that was so huge,” Greenberg said.
It was the start of a mentorship that drew her back to the UMass MFA program after working in New York for a few years. There, she found help not just from “Queen Penny” Remsen, but also from architectural lighting designer Traci Klainer and theater and dance lighting designer Matt Richards, both also former students of Remsen’s who guest lectured at UMass, as well as Michael Dubin, the department’s lighting supervisor.
Greenberg said she name-checked both Klainer and Remsen in her interview for Women in Entertainment Lighting, thanking them “for my success and their mentorship of me when I was a young designer, and how much they've contributed to the industries of design in architecture and theater.”
Greenberg now teaches lighting designer at Weber State University in Utah and is the Chair of its School of Performing Arts. She also designs professionally and has work with Utah Shakespeare Festival planned for the coming summer.
In addition to teaching Weber State students in classes and on productions, this past summer, after a break during COVID, Greenberg was again able to bring students of all theater areas to New York to experience what it’s like to work on an Off-Broadway production with The Adjusted Realists.
She’s now in a position to pass on the lessons she learned at UMass Theater, whether it’s the work ethic and accountability or the joy in the work.
“I try to hold on to the sense of humor that I think Penny leads with, but not losing the rigor. I want to help students get where they want to go,” Greenberg said.