kevin adams
theatre lighting
kevin adams
broadway
lighting
BOOK NEWS!!
Coming! February 2027!
Electric Spectacle: Designing Color and Light for the Stage
published by Routledge
pre-order available now at most online booksellers
for ages 13+
The book traces Adams' transformation from Texas-born set designer to self-taught Broadway lighting designer, chronicling numerous productions including his 20-year journey with "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and his groundbreaking work on "Spring Awakening." Rather than focusing solely on technical aspects, Adams emphasizes the art of collaboration with directors, choreographers, designers, and performers across ten significant productions that shaped both his career and the theater industry. Central to the book is Adams' response to the revolutionary transition from incandescent to LED lighting in the early 21st century, documenting how this technological shift transformed stage design. Adams reveals his unique approach of using his own home as a laboratory for lighting concepts that later appeared in his Broadway designs. Through detailed examples and extensive visual documentation—including light plots, paperwork, handmade collage and works on paper, stage management tech schedules, scenic models and renderings and production photos from high-profile musicals spanning 1998-2025—readers gain insight into the creative process behind theatrical lighting design.
Adams shares valuable lessons on creative problem-solving, communication strategies, and navigating the ups and downs of theatrical life, making this comprehensive work both an educational resource for students of theatrical lighting design and emerging professionals and an accessible behind-the-scenes look at how Broadway magic is created.
Kevin Adams brings remarkable generosity, warmth, and wit to every page, making this both a compelling read and an essential instructional guide. With a candid, unmistakably personal voice, he takes us behind the curtain to reveal his process on some of Broadway’s most dynamic, innovative and visually striking productions.
—Anne Militello, Lighting designer; Professor Emeritus, California Institute of the Arts
Kevin Adams is one of our great storytellers who sees light in the world, and the world of light, in wholly original and inspiring ways. Here he brings his life-long conversation with the world around him to full, rich, luminous life. An essential guide to boldly living, lighting and making theater.
—David Zinn, Set and Costume designer
Kevin Adams is a true artist using light as his medium. This beautiful, accessible book charts his journey of making a life and making theater, revealing a profound creative process meant not just for designers, but for every theatrical collaborator: teachers, playwrights, producers and directors alike.
—Susan Hilferty, Costume and Set Designer, NYU/Tisch Graduate Design Chair of 25 years
Kevin Adams, one of Fast Company's
100 Most Creative People in Business
"Kevin Adams is on the leading edge of the post-incandescant age on Broadway, exploring the potential of CFL bulbs, fluorescent tubes, glass neon, and the latest LED technology. His work for Spring Awakening--brilliant white light for the 19th century scenes and saturated color from what he calls "electric objects" for the songs--won him a Tony in 2007. He picked up a second Tony in 2008 for The 39 Steps, a third in 2010 for his lighting of the Green Day musical American Idiot and a fourth in 2014 for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Another Adams hit: a fabulous wall of light for the musical Passing Strange. One admirer said "it looked like Mark Rothko meets Japanese Pop."
