Steve Holliday

Areas of Specialization

Lighting Designer, Scenic Designer

Courses Taught

Freshman Seminar, Introduction to Stage Lighting, Stage Lighting Design, Stage and Production Management, Theatre Photography

Student Advising

Freshmen, Theatre Majors, Practicum in Lighting Design, Practicum in Stage Management

Background

A Maryland native, Steve Holliday has been designing lighting, scenery and sound for over forty years, in regional theatres across the country as well as New York City and Washington, D.C. Some favorite designs during this time include lighting the Industrial Strength Festival for A-1 Collaborators in New York, Journey of Destiny for the Jamestown 400^th Anniversary (broadcast on CBS Television), Holding Patterns at the Lincoln Center Theatre Lab, Fifth of July at the Studio Theatre in Washington, scenery and lighting for the English-language premiere of Josef Topol’s Hour of Love for the Embassy of the Czech Republic, lighting A Christmas Carol for Virginia Stage Company, and both lighting and sound for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever at the Kennedy Center Theatre Lab. He lit both The Threepenny Opera and Measure for Measure, directed by Liviu Ciulei, in New York. Among his design work for the William and Mary Theatre he remembers scenery for Arcadia and Spring Awakening and lighting for The Oresteia, Metamorphoses, and Leah Glenn’s reconstruction of Paul Taylor’s The Word with particular satisfaction. From 1996 through 2016 Steve was the Resident Lighting Designer for the Virginia Shakespeare Festival, designing 36 productions in that time. He served as Chair of the Department of Theatre, Speech, and Dance from 2004-2009.

Professor Holliday received an AB in Anthropology from the University of Chicago and an MA in Physical Anthropology from Northwestern University. Although he was a practicing archeologist for several years, he changed focus to technical theatre and design. After a decade spent working as technical director, production manager, and designer for a number of theatres, he earned an MFA in Lighting and Scenic Design from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He has taught at American University in Washington, D.C.; St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota; and joined the faculty of William & Mary in the fall of 1995.

Steve has contributed significantly to both the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the United States Institute for Theatre Technology. He held the positions of Conference Planner and Focus Group Representative for Design and Technology in ATHE, and has worked extensively with the USITT Lighting Commission, including having served as Vice Commissioner for Health and Safety and Vice Commissioner for Education.