Linda Essig is Director of the School of Theatre and Film in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. She serves as Artistic Director of the school’s MainStage Season and directs ASU’s arts entrepreneurship program, p.a.v.e., the performing arts venture experience. A professional lighting designer, Essig’s design for the ASU production of Suzan-Lori Parks’s “Venus” was part of the USA National Exhibit of theatrical design at the Prague Quadrennial in 2007. In addition to her designs for academic theatre, Essig has designed lighting for theatres throughout the country including Cleveland Playhouse, Milwaukee Rep, Missouri Rep, Utah Shakespearean Festival, Skylight Opera, La Mama ETC, Pioneer Theatre, Madison Repertory Theatre and others. She currently has funding from the Kauffman Foundation for her work on the p.a.v.e. program and has previously been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the City of Tempe, and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She is the author of numerous articles and two books: Lighting and the Design Idea (recently published in an expanded second edition) and The Speed of Light: Dialogues on Lighting Design and Technological Change. Prior to joining the ASU faculty in 2004, Essig taught lighting design at UW-Madison for 16 years, the last two as department chair. At ASU, Essig teaches Orientation to Theatre and Film where she has the opportunity to meet all of the over 500 undergraduates in the school. She is a member of the boards of directors of the Phoenix Fringe Festival and the United States Institute for Theatre Technology.

Curriculum Vitae