Jason Amato, Lighting Designer

1331 Brunswick Ave
Norfolk, VA 23508
512.626.1847

~~ Designed approximately 600 shows from 1992-2021

RESIDENT LIGHTING DESIGNER EXPERIENCE

Date Capacity Period Artistic Director Producing Co.

2017-Pres Resident Lighting Designer 4 Seasons Chip Gallagher Virginia Musical Theatre

1994-2015 Resident Lighting Designer 22 Seasons Bonnie Cullum The Vortex

2008-2015 Resident Lighting Designer 8 Seasons Ann Ciccolella Austin Shakespeare

1993-2014 Resident Lighting Designer 19 Seasons Sally Jacque Blue Lapis Light Site Specific Aerial Dance

2001-2012 Resident Lighting Designer 12 Seasons Dave Steakley Zach Theatre

2000-2008 Resident Lighting Designer 9 Seasons Acia Gray Tapestry Dance Co. Paramount Theatre

1996-1999 Resident Lighting Designer 4 Seasons Deborah Hay Various Dance

1996-2001 Resident Lighting Designer 6 Seasons Andrea Ariel Various Dance

1999-2002 Lighting Designer 4 International Tours Jose Greco II Flamenco Dance Co. US/Taiwan

NOTABLE SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

Date Capacity Production Director/Designer Venue/Producing Co.

2020 Lighting Designer Chicago Chip Gallagher Virginia Musical Theatre

2019 “ Native Gardens Tinashe Kajese-Bolden Virginia Stage Company

2019 “ Choir Boy Anthony Stockard Norfolk State University

2019 “ Once On This Island Anthony Stockard Norfolk State University

2019 “ Hedwig and the Angry Inch Dave Steakley ZACH Theatre, Topfer

2018 “ Crowns Raelle Myrick-Hodges Virginia Stage Company

2018 “ The Color Purple Anthony Stockard Norfolk State University

2018 “ Fences Anthony Stockard Norfolk State University

2018 “ Jekyll and Hyde Chip Gallagher Virginia Musical Theatre

2017 “ Mamma Mia Pierre Brault Virginia Musical Theatre

2017“ “ How to Succeed.. Chip Gallagher Virginia Musical Theatre

2017 “ The Wiz Anthony Stockard/Patrick Mullins Virginia Stage Company

2016 “ Grounded Laley Lippard Virginia Stage Company

2015 “ Hairspray Bob Tolaro Zilker Theatre Productions

2015 “ Mothers and Sons Dave Steakley ZACH Theatre, Topfer

2014 “ This Wonderful Life Richard Robichaux ZACH Theatre

2014 Set and Light Design Othello Ann Ciccolella – Austin Shakespeare The Rollins Theatre

2014 Lighting Design The Who’s Tommy Dave Steakley ZACH Topfer Theatre

2014 “ Vanya Sonia Masha and Spike Abe Reybold ZACH Topfer Theatre

2014 “ Octia (film) Bonnie Cullum Austin Tx

2013 “ Anthem Ann Ciccolella – Austin Shakespeare Baryshnikov, NYC

2012 “ White Christmas Nick Demos ZACH Theatre

2011 “ The Book of Grace Suzan-Lori Parks ZACH Theatre

2011 “ Red Hot Patriot David Esbjornson ZACH Theatre

2011 “ Spring Awakening Michael Baron ZACH Theatre

2017 Asst. Lighting Des. Der Freischütz Stephen Lawless/Pat Collins Virginia Opera


AWARDS

  • BroadwayWorld Central Virginia Best Lighting Design 2019 -LACAGE AUX FOLLES - Virginia Musical Theatre

  • Austin Critics Table Outstanding Lighting Design 2016-2017. Atlantis: A Puppet Opera

  • B. Iden Payne Outstanding Lighting Design 2013-2014. The Who’s Tommy

  • B. Iden Payne Outstanding Lighting Design 2013-2014. Water

  • The Kennedy Center 2011 Region V Festival XLIV “Achievement in Lighting Design”. Eurydice

  • Austin Circle of Theaters 2008 special recognition award, "Outstanding Contribution to Austin Theater"

  • B. Iden Payne Outstanding Lighting Design 2007-2008. Troades

  • B. Iden Payne Outstanding Lighting Design 2006-2007. Trickster

  • Austin Critics Table Outstanding Lighting Design 2006-2007, Requiem/I Am My Own Wife/The Souls of Our Feet/Take Me Out

  • B. Iden Payne Outstanding Lighting Design 2005-2006. The Exonerated

  • Austin Critics Table Outstanding Lighting Design 2005-2006, Whispers of Heaven/Keepin' It Weird/Vampyress/Urinetown: The Musical/Dark Goddess 2006/The Exonerated

  • B. Iden Payne Outstanding Lighting Design 2004-2005. Omnium-Gatherum

  • Austin Critics Table Outstanding Lighting Design 2004-2005, Cabaret, Ghost From a Perfect Place, Where Nothing Falls II, Omnium Gatherum, Crowns, St. Enid and the Black Hand, Aida, Sleeping Beauty

  • Best of Austin 2002, “Best Dazzler”- “Some stage designers may treat light like a technical tool, but Jason Amato conducts light -- not in the electrical sense but the orchestral sense. Shafts of light swell and fade at his bidding, like brass instruments in a symphony; colors saturate a stage the way strings come to the fore in a musical passage. The way he works with light is wholly artistic, and it's made his work at the Vortex, the Zachary Scott Theatre Center, and elsewhere dazzling in every sense: so physically intense as to be blinding, but also (and chiefly) jaw-droppingly impressive, for its beauty, its vividness, and the way it illuminates what's happening onstage, the patterns and hues corresponding to a scene's mood and emotion. This is a man who truly sheds light on a play.” Link

  • B. Iden Payne Outstanding Lighting Design 2001-2002, The Deluge : on the shoulder of night

  • B. Iden Payne Outstanding Lighting Design 1999-2000, Despair's Book of Dreams and the Sometimes Radio

  • Austin Critics Table Outstanding Lighting Design 1999-2000, The Rocky Horror Show, Knowledge and Melancholy

  • B. Iden Payne Outstanding Lighting Design 1997-1998, Triskelion

  • Austin Critics Table Outstanding Lighting Design 1997-1998, Triskelion, Fur, and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities

  • B. Iden Payne Outstanding Lighting Design 1996-1997, Panoptikon

  • Best of Austin ‘95, “Best Lighting Design on a Shoe String” – “A shoe string, a piece of wire, a tin can, a flashlight - Jason Amato can make very cool light effects with most anything. A versatile designer who's lit everything from the Zilker Musical to the avant garde BodyMind, Amato excels when working for alternative artists with tiny budgets. We were especially taken with his recent job illuminating Sally Jacques and Tina Marsh's multimedia piece at Laguna Gloria. It isn't easy to light an orchestra, dancers swinging from trees, and boats in the lagoon, but he did it. And beautifully. “ LInk

Related Skills and Interests

Lighting

  • Familiarity with Vari-Lite, Martin, Robe and High End Systems fixtures

  • Extensive experience programming ETC EOS/Ion and Strand Consoles

  • Expertise in Vectorworks

  • Maintains an active design apprenticeship program

  • Hand Drafting and sketching

  • Full knowledge of conventional lighting fixture applications, specifications, maintenance and repair

Scenery

  • Designed/TD several shows in the Austin, Tx area

  • Expertise with Wire Feed Welding

  • Pursuit in Sculpture

Photography & Graphics

  • Solid background in digital photography

  • Experience with Graphic design for logos, branding, icons and user interface components

REFERENCES

Dave Steakley Artistic Director Zach Theatre dave@zachtheatre.org 512.476.0594

Bonnie Cullum Artistic Director The Vortex ethos@vortexrep.org 512.478.5282

Melinda Parr Executive Producer/Production Manager melinda.parr@gmail.com

Ann Ciccolella Artistic Director Austin Shakespeare ann@austinshakespeare.org

Chip Gallagher Artistic Director Virginia Musical Theatre chip.gallagher@gsarts.net

Sally Jacque Artistic Director Blue Lapis Light isms@mail.onr.com

Recommendations

“I have had the great fortune to collaborate with Jason Amato on dozens of productions over the past 15 years at ZACH Theatre.  I love working with Jason because he sees LIGHT as a transformative idea, and COLOR as an emotion, and SHAPE as the stuff of emotional currency.  Jason frequently works with dance companies and in creating large outdoor environmental spectacles on the sides of downtown buildings, and in outdoor park theatres and in small warehouse spaces, so he thinks about space differently than most theatre lighting designers.  Back light and side light are important tools in Jason’s palette and manifest in unexpected and surprising ways in his designs.  He is also used to creating hanging positions almost everywhere because of working in so many non-traditional spaces along with traditional theatres.  I’ve seen Jason work with a large budget and also with just a few bucks and some gaff tape and create innovative designs for which his various collaborators have been impressed and appreciative.  Jason responds to the live experience of actors and dancers and singers in a room to create transcendent moments of realization onstage that aspire to capture the unexplainable.  He challenges himself to think out of the box and to find new ways to express the text, a feeling, a key moment with light.  We have worked on a lot of musicals together and he understands how light has to respond to a choreographic hit, a music shift, a key change, a shift in locale, a button while not feeling predictable or formulaic.  He’s smart, thoughtful, creative, passionate and experienced — everything a director needs in a design meeting, in a production meeting, in a rehearsal and in a tech — a collaborator you can count on.”

Dave Steakley
Producing Artistic Director
ZACH Theatre
512-476-0594, ext. 226
www.zachtheatre.org

“I am writing to recommend Jason Amato as an outstanding lighting designer. I am the Producing Artistic Director of VORTEX Repertory Company, a non-profit theatre in Austin, Texas now in its twenty-second year of operations with a full-time facility. Jason Amato has been the resident lighting designer of our company since 1994, and we have had the great pleasure of creating dozens of original projects together. Mr. Amato has received numerous B. Iden Payne Awards for his lighting designs of VORTEX shows, especially the more fantastical spectacle of our productions of original musicals and operas.
Jason Amato demonstrates a keen insight for new material, strong vision for the work, and discerning sensibilities. He asks clarifying questions and contributes to the whole look of each show. In addition to being a visionary lighting designer, he has always provided his insightful intellect, strong attention to detail, thorough execution, and diligent commitment. He is a key contributor to the artistic process through production meetings and in the collaborative creation of the vision of the show. Mr. Amato has repeatedly exceeded expectations, excelled at problem solving, and is a great team player.
I highly recommend Jason Amato as an extraordinary and accomplished lighting designer. His style and experimentation with light have shaped the look and feel of my productions, and I am always excited to work with him.

Please feel free to contact me directly if you need further information about Jason Amato.”

Bonnie Cullum
Producing Artistic Director
VORTEX Repertory Company
(512) 478-5282
vortex@vortexrep.org

“Working with, or even watching a performance lighted by Jason Amato is like getting schooled in another language, the language of light. Jason understands intimately how light can speak to mood, character, dramatic action, and through his choices -- color, brightness, pattern, and the architectural division of space -- can enhance an audience's sense of what is happening in a drama or a dance. And having collaborated with Jason on artistic projects myself, I know that his choices are never arbitrary, never made for the sake of spectacle or pure sensation; they are always bound up in the service of the work as a whole. They are an organic element in the production as a whole. He is meticulous in sounding out that essence of a work and in crafting its realization onstage. And having seen his work for many years now, I can say with confidence that the results are perpetually dazzling -- in every sense of the word.”

Robert Faires
Arts Editor, The Austin Chronicle and Stage Director
rfaires@austinchronicle.com

“Jason Amato is an extraordinary collaborator both in the high artistic sense of emotionally understanding every theater experience but also in the practical sense of what is needed to make a project successful.  I have known Jason for many years and worked with him as a designer for 12 years.  He is simply one of the best theater artists I have worked with on any coast.”

Ann Ciccolella
Artistic Director
Austin Shakespeare
ann@austinshakespeare.org