lighting
d e s i g n
f o l i o
d a n n y
danny pettingill
Danny is the design director for lighting design practice candlestick design
with a background in engineering, fabrication, and design in space and light. He has worked as a freelance lighting designer in theatre for the last decade, expanding his practice into industrial and commercial projects in the last five years.
His Theatre works include; Acclaimed adaption of Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona (adapted with Adena Jacobs and Dayna Morrissey, produced by Fraught Outfit), This Uncharted Hour (Tasmania Performs with the Theatre Royal, Hobart) Speaking in Tongues (Griffin Theatre), CUT (Belvoir), National Tours of Jack Charles vs the Crown (Ilbijerri Theatre) and I am My Own Wife (Tasmanian Theatre Company) FOLEY (lighting and co – video designer Ilbijerri Theatre and Melbourne Festival). Divine, The Lost Story of the Magdalen Asylum (peepshow inc. at Abbotsford Convent) The Power of Yes (Company B); The City, Red Sky Morning, Faces in the Crowd and Pool (No Water) (Red Stitch); Sisters of Gelam (Ilbijerri Theatre); Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) (Bsharp/Arts Radar); Care Instructions (Aphids/Malthouse Theatre); 3xSisters and Platonov (The Hayloft Project).
In addition, Danny has worked for companies such as Tasmania Theatre Company, Terrapin Puppet Theatre, Malthouse Theatre, Union House Theatre, Melbourne Workers Theatre, Full Tilt and La Mama.
Danny’s design is based strongly in the use of Space and Architecture with a focus on how light interacts with the environment and the people that inhabit or view it, the uses that it serves and the impact it has conceptually and practically on a specific space.
Credits away from Theatre include Production Designs for short film Blood Ballad (2007 Melbourne International Film Festival) and music video Crawling Around in the Cellar for Melbourne Indie Rockers The Bakelite Age among others, and he was a participating artist in the installation exhibition Inhouse for Platform Two at Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station.
Danny received a Melbourne Green Room Award for Outstanding Lighting Design in Independent Theatre for Platonov (The Hayloft Project, 2008) and has earned a number of nominations for work as a lighting designer on productions of Red Sky Morning, Pool (No Water) and 3xSisters. In 2012 he was nominated for a Sydney Theatre Award (lighting Design) for Cut (Belvoir).
Danny graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2006 with a Bachelor of Production and was the recipient of the 2006 Orloff Family Trust Scholarship Award. In 2005 Danny completed his Diploma of Small Companies and Community Theatre from Victoria University.
Nominations
Melbourne Green Room Awards Lighting Design : Red Sky Morning (2008)
Pool (No Water) (2008) 3xSisters (2009)
Sydney Theatre Awards Lighting Design : CUT (2011)
Education
Lighting Engineering RMIT (2013)
Bachelor : Design (Production) VCA (2006)
Diploma : Small Companies, Community Theatre VU (2003) Certificate II : Engineering VU (2001)
Awards
Melbourne Green Room Award
Outstanding Lighting Design in Independent Theatre : Platonov (The Hayloft Project, 2008)
Persona (Fraught Outfit, 2012)
Most Outstanding Lighting Design in Company Theatre : Other Desert Cities (MTC, 2013)
Orloff Family Trust Scholarship Award. (2006) Besen Fellowship (design) 2008
platonov . 2008
the hayloft project
kindred studios . footscray photos : jeff busby
“..sensuously lit with
an air of fin de siecle
decadence by Danny Pettingill,
is spectacular.”
– Alison Croggon,
Theatre Notes, 2008
3 x sisters . 2009
the hayloft project
arts house . north melbourne photos : jeff busby
“3xSisters is an extraordinary
production, and possibly the
best thing I’ve seen the
independent theatre do in
Australia yet.”
red sky morning . 2008
red stitch actors theatre red stitch
photos : jodie hutchinson
“..[the design] shines a
spotlight on the
psychological spaces of the
characters, their motives and
thoughts. ”
– Melita Pereira,
pool (no water) . 2008
red stitch actors theatre red stitch
photos : jodie hutchinson
“Danny Pettingill’s lighting –
fluorescent flickering bulbs, spotlights
and lighting from below – [creates an]
atmosphere of closeness and
claustrophobia. Do the artists want to
get out or are they happy to be
confined there?”
– Lindsay Schwietz,
Laneway Magazine, 2008
speaking in tongues . 2010
griffin theatre company stables theatre
photos : brett boardman
“... a fine creative team of designer
Dayna Morrissey and lighting
designer Danny Pettingill who’ve
turned the Stables stage into a
startlingly spacious void of a
fashionably edgy interior. Actors are
occasionally spot lit - pinned
helplessly like butterflies on a
board.”
power of yes . 2010
company b
belvoir theatre
photos : brett boardman
“Danny Pettingill’s lighting design
controls the simple space with great
efficiency. While [Lipson] is shining a
light on the history of the crisis and
the culture of the money men, a bright
daylight fluorescence floods down on the
group discussions and seeps out into
the raked lecture-hall cum forum
seating..”
– Nick Terrel,
MC reviews, 2010
the city . 2010
red stitch actors theatre red stitch
photos : jodie hutchinson
“It’s certainly difficult to imagine a
more intelligent production.
Dayna Morrissey’s design and Danny
Pettingill’s lighting tricks the eye,
so that the tiny stage at Red Stitch
suddenly has several extra dimensions,
functioning as both a poetic and
naturalistic setting.”
– Alison Croggon,
Theatre Notes, 2010
cut . 2011
bevoir
downstairs theatre photos : heidrun lohr
“It’s dark. Danny Pettingill
(Light-ing) has found a way of shrinking
space, drawing the space closer,
dark-er… we are inside something. Something
unfamiliar...
This is the edge of theatre.”
other desert cities . 2013
melbourne theater company sumner theatre . southbank photos : jeff busby
“Danny Pettingill’s lighting design
works in sympathy with the set,
exploiting its features...
Glass is put to good use by
Pettingill’s simple but effective
lighting, economically suggesting the
passing of time and of shifting mood.”
persona . 2012
fraught outfit
theatreworks . beckett theatre . belvoir photos : pia johnston
“Jacobs’ take, designed by Morrissey and lit
by Pettingill, capture a similar intensity
and, at the same time, a chillingly austere
minimalism. This production, too, like
Bergman’s, seems utterly uncompromising...
The film is considered one of last century’s
greatest works of art and Belvoir’s
presentation of Fraught Outfit’s production
doesn’t fall too far behind such an accolade
in this new century. This is compelling and
compulsory theatre.”
mercury fur . 2007
little death
theatre works . griffin