Stage Lighting Enhancements: The Hardware Store Option

Technological advancements in stage lights have kept pace. As computer-based improvements have been made in just about every aspect of education, similar enhancements have added capability to light up your stage – more lighting power in smaller and smaller lighting devices; more adjustability in shading, color and focus; more ways to control all of that power. Stage lighting has come a long way from strips of 150-watt flood lights behind red, green, blue or clear glass lenses.

However, all of that technology costs money, and funding for enhancing the lighting on a school stage likely falls behind just about every other educational need for those dollars. Certainly, your theater has adequate lighting so that the stage can be used for concerts, presentations, graduation and the like, as well as adequate lighting for special productions: one-act plays, musicals, dramatic readings, theater.

Many scenes in those programs need just a bit more lighting, a bit more control, a bit more enhancement than the standard white Kliegls or Fresnels lenses can provide. When funding is limited, there are still ways to provide the creative lighting needed for that soliloquy, monologue or tender love scene on stage, possibilities just around the corner.

At your local hardware store, you can find almost all of the gear you will need to be able to easily add light and audience focus on those special scenes. A well-stocked electrical aisle at the hardware store offers fixtures that are ready to mount or the parts and pieces that you would need to build custom ones.

The gear ready to use can include simple clamp light fixtures with interchangeable bulbs, LED fixtures with more focused lighting, strip lighting in various colors, and the wide variety of shop light configurations. The parts and pieces section would provide one of your creative stage crew all the wiring, sockets, switches and connections necessary to create the custom-made fixtures needed for your presentation. The possibilities for building the key lighting needed are endless.

The same aisle would also have the pre-made extension cords needed to run power and control to your new fixtures. Available in different lengths and different colors (but not very many), they can also have different end configurations so that more than one fixture can be connected to the same line. Some have multiple plugs at the end while others have an outlet spaced every 4 feet or so. Both are very useful, but make sure of two things regarding extension cords. Make sure they are three-wire so they include a ground and that the amperes they can safely carry are adequate for the load put on them by the fixtures they power. You should also consider securing each point that two plugs are connected with electrical or friction tape, making sure that they cannot come apart (bad) or come partially apart and short out (worse).

The aisle that offers you the most options in providing just the right light for your scene is the one that contains the bulbs themselves. With the advancements in LED technology, standard light fixtures can now produce light in a wide variety of lumens (the strength of the light) and temperature (the color of the light). By selecting the right bulb for your fixture, you can have the perfect lighting for that theatrical moment. Make sure that your lightbulb is dimmable as a few LEDs, inexpensive ones made for standard fixtures, are not and thus cannot be used in most stage settings. However, with LED technology comes the need for lower ampere to get the same amount of light. This allows you to have more than one fixture/light attached to each extension cord and managed by each controller.

That controller may be the most expensive part of your efforts to expand your stage lighting options. Some light control boards used for standard stage light have the capability to connect and manage standard 120-volt cords and thus the lights attached. But they are limited to just one or two such connections. If you are adding more than that, an expanded or separate light control board might be needed, one specifically capable of handling and controlling standard 120-volt plugs. Once connected and positioned, with the proper LED installed, they can be controlled like any other stage lighting. Most of these boards also have the capability to store and retrieve presets so that multiple light changes can be made with just one button push or if connected to lighting software on a connected laptop, one click.

The lighting fixtures, bulbs and connections available at your local hardware store are not strong enough to replace the main lighting needed in your theater for concerts and standard events. But with a bit of creativity, assembly and a small amount of funding, those special moments in your drama presentation or musical can be easily enhanced by visiting their electrical aisles. Even if you only add one or two and simply turn them on or off with a standard switch, you can empower the scene and increase its impact on our audience.

Steffen Parker is a retired music educator, event organizer, maple sugar maker, and Information Technology specialist from Vermont who serves as the Performing Arts/Technology representative on the NFHS High School Today Publications Committee. He received the NFHS Citation Award in 2017 and the Ellen McCulloch- Lovell Award in Arts Education in 2021.