Christopher Akerlind, Lighting Designer-Episode #321

Christopher Akerlind, has designed lighting, and occasionally scenery, for over 650 productions of theater, opera, and dance across the U.S. and around the world, including 24 shows on Broadway. 

Chris’s recent work includes Waiting for Godot at Theatre for a New Audience, Lynn Nottage’s play Clyde’s on Broadway and at the Mark Taper Forum, The Light in the Piazza, for which he won his first Tony, Paula Vogel’s play Indecent, winning him both the Tony and Drama Desk Awards, Rocky the Musical, which garnered him a Tony nomination, Sting’s musical The Last Ship, and The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, for which he was also Tony nominated. 

Among Chris’s other Broadway lighting designs are: August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson and Seven Guitars, Talk Radio, and the musical, Waitress.

Chris’s numerous shows not on Broadway include: Scene with Cranes for CalArts Center for New Performance; the premiere of M Butterfly for the Santa Fe Opera; and Martha Clarke’s devised pieces God’s Fool, Angel Reapers, and Cheri. 

Chris has also received an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence, four Drama Desk Awards, the Michael Merritt Award for Design and Collaboration, two Chicago area Joseph Jefferson Awards, as well as numerous nominations for the Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, and Outer Critics Circle Awards.

Chris has taught lighting design at schools like Cal Arts, USC, CMU, and his alma mater, Yale.