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Colin K. Bills, the lighting designer D.C. theaters have taken a shine to

(Bill O'Leary/ WASHINGTON POST ) - Colin K. Bills, prolific D.C. theatrical lighting designer, at work at Wooly Mammoth on May, 21, 2012 in Washington, DC.

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By Celia Wren,
Celia Wren
May 25, 2012 04:07 PM EDT
The Washington Post
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How do you light the apocalypse?

That’s a question that D.C.-based lighting designer Colin K. Bills has pondered repeatedly of late. This in-demand artist, who masterminds lighting for about 18 shows a year, has handled a typically eclectic roster this season: the new play “Lungs” at Studio Theatre, the musical “Hairspray” at Signature Theatre, Synetic Theater’s silent-Shakespeare riff “The Taming of the Shrew,” and more.

(Bill O'Leary/WASHINGTON POST) - Colin K. Bills, prolific D.C. theatrical lighting designer, at work at Wooly Mammoth.

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But the three-time Helen Hayes Award winner has a long-standing relationship with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, which named him to its core artist group last fall. And since the concept of apocalypse has been the unifying theme of Woolly’s 2011-12 season, Bills has been serving up images of doomsday and civilization in crisis. He concocted the eerie dawn of the Rapture for “A Bright New Boise” in October, for instance. Now he is crafting the aftermath of Armageddon for “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play,” a world premiere by Anne Washburn (see related story), running May 28-July 1.

As the subtitle suggests, “Mr. Burns” imagines life after the collapse of the grid. Working with director Steven Cosson and set designer Misha Kachman, Bills will conjure up milieus bathed with firelight, celestial light and old-fashioned radiance sources like candles. This look will be a stage illusion: In actuality, “Mr. Burns” will rely on modern lighting technology and Pepco power lines. But the illusion will not be merely a good-looking extra: It will figure critically in the production’s storytelling and emotional rhythms.

That’s the theory, at any rate. Lighting can be “about an emotional reaction to things and not necessarily just about the realism of things,” Bills observed last month at Arena Stage, where his challenge was, if not apocalypse proper, at least a minor environmental emergency. The bespectacled 36-year-old was engaged in technical rehearsals for “Begotten: O’Neill and the Harbor of Masks,” a production that involved a hefty dose of fog; and on the previous day the fog — orchestrated via the lighting control board — had set off Arena’s fire alarms.

Bent on rectifying the situation, Bills ensconced himself calmly behind two computer screens in the Kogod Cradle seating area and launched into an afternoon of fog- and lighting-cue fine-tuning, a process that involved monitoring the screens and the stage while muttering requests like “Move cue 20 to cue 19.5. Great. And then, 7 through 9 at zero” over a headset. His lighting board programmer, on the other end of the headset, was making revisions based on the numbers, which referred to cues and variables like brightness levels and specific lighting instruments.

Bills gravitated toward this kind of esoterica early in his career. Raised in the Chicago suburb of Glenview, he enrolled at Dartmouth with vague ideas of studying engineering. But after an acquaintance asked for help hanging lights for a campus production, Bills started immersing himself in drama. Upon graduating with a theater degree and a linguistics minor, he landed a lighting internship at Baltimore’s Centerstage, where he met another intern, Rachel Grossman, who became his wife.