Alan Symonds (September 21, 1946June 20, 2006)"ALAN SYMONDS (1946-2006)", SSDI
/ref> was the

Technical Director A technical director (TD) is usually a senior technical person within e.g. a software company, engineering firm, film studio, theatre company or television studio. They are responsible for overseeing and coordinating all of the technical aspect ...

of the Harvard College Theaters for many years. He entered

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

in the 1960s, started participating in

technical theater Technical may refer to: * Technical (vehicle), an improvised fighting vehicle * Technical area, an area which a manager, other coaching personnel, and substitutes are allowed to occupy during a football match * Technical advisor, a person who ad ...

during his freshman orientation period, and soon found himself spending much more time on technical theater than on his studies. He participated in work on the student level, but also started working with professional companies, particularly the

Boston Ballet The Boston Ballet is an American professional classical ballet company based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1963 by E. Virginia Williams and Sydney Leonard, and was the first professional repertory ballet company in New England. ...

, for whom he designed low cost portable smoke generators, and the

American Repertory Theater The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is a professional not-for-profit theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1979 by Robert Brustein, the A.R.T. is known for its commitment to new American plays and music–theater explorations; to ne ...

Career

In the course of his career, Symonds was a part of the lighting crew at

Woodstock The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. Billed as "a ...

. He often told the students he worked with about pouring ice cubes into the spotlights there just to keep them from overheating. He is also responsible for the

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's penguin exhibit lighting design, and was a primary consultant in the redesign of the dilapidated theatre which originally housed the

Hasty Pudding Theatricals Hasty Pudding Theatricals is a student theatrical society at Harvard University known for its annual burlesque crossdressing musicals as well as its Man and Woman of the Year awards. The Pudding is the oldest theatrical organization in the Unite ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. Symonds focused on lighting and set design, education, and safety. He became well known as an architectural lighting consultant, bringing the McCandless method to lighting spaces not meant for theater. He was a volunteer fireman, and brought that knowledge back into theater production safety. (His "fire speech," incorporating exposition of the mathematical relationship between rate of combustion and available oxygen, together with the infamous threat of a lifetime ban should "so much as a piccolo" be carried during an evacuation, earned him particular notoriety.) Symonds also worked as a freelance theatre consultant for several theatre construction and renovation projects, including the new theatre and scene shop facilities at King Philip Regional High School in Wrentham, MA. His garrulous personal approach to work and his remarkably broad areas of competence earned him a cult following of theater lovers, many of whom moved on to become successful professionals in the fields of theater and film, with great debt to his influence. He was ubiquitous at Harvard, having his hands not only in the productions of the Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club, but also designing lights for the

, being an integral part of the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert & Sullivan Players, and giving technical advice to productions staged by the

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

. In 1995, he founded the Freshman Arts Program, to ensure that students who wanted to practice the arts at Harvard would have ample knowledge of the resources at their disposal. He taught introductory and advanced technical theater to Harvard undergraduates. In 1998, a new position was created for him at Harvard, Technical Director for Harvard College Theatre Programs under the Office for the Arts at Harvard, to acknowledge his absolute essentiality in the Harvard theater environment. Symonds died on June 20, 2006, at age 59, as the result of heart failure.

References

Obituaries

Harvard University Gazette, 2006Harvard Crimson, Juse 30, 2006Boston.Com (Boston Globe Online) ObituaryStage SourceBoston Herald Obituaries

Interviews and additional sources

*http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~spectrum/past_spectrums/2004/winter04/Symonds.htm *http://www.laboratorium.net/archives/AlanSymonds.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Symonds, Alan 2006 deaths Harvard College alumni Harvard University faculty American lighting designers 1946 births