Lighting

By William Andersen

If you are asked to do your ventriloquial act at a party, at a store, in a club room, in a Sunday School room or some similar place not normally used for staging programs, you may have some difficulty with the lights.

The people sponsoring or running the program probably are not experienced in all the little things which are important to a performance and may place you in a very poor location. You should arrive early enough to check out the setting for lights, as well as sound and other things you need. Look for lights behind where you will do your act. If there are lights behind you where people can see them they will definitely distract the eyes from you. Turn off or cover such lights. If there is a window behind you with light coming through, cover that, too. It is not easy to see a person work if he is silhouetted against a bright light. Look for a way to turn lights to face you rather than onto the audience.
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Condensed from the chapter on "Lighting" found in Andersen's book, Ventriloquism From A-V. See post below.