Lighting Designer Kristie Roldan Supports IT GETS BETTER Tour

This spring lighting designer Kristie Roldan of Look Up Point Design designed and supported the It Gets Better tour, a musical theater performance that is the culmination of a week-long series of educational and outreach workshops in communities across the nation.

It Gets Better is a music and theater production aimed at energizing community awareness and support around the issues of bullying and harassment. Produced as a collaboration of the Gay Men's chorus of Los Angeles, the Emmy Award-winning It Gets Better Project, and Speak Theater Arts, It Gets Better is presented in tandem with a week of local outreach and education.

"The challenge in creating a lighting design for this tour is in the flexibility required to make each show happen. There is an ideal design I have created for the show, but for me the most important part of this production is to get the message out to young people in the communities we visit." Roldan said. "To that end the design for the It Gets Better tour is scalable to the size of the venues, time allotted, and equipment available as the tour does not travel with a lighting package, while still delivering a high quality, fully realized production of the show.

Lighting Designer Kristie Roldan has been designing the It Gets Better Tour since 2011. "The design for the show is updated regularly as we have a portion of the performance that includes videos and participation from the local community in each stop, and also as it needs updating to remain relevant to our audiences. This spring I additionally supported the tour in Milwaukee, WI, Lincoln, NE, Houston, TX, and Los Angeles, allowing me to continue to work with the design and explore the possibilities for the show's life on the road."

Written and directed by Liesel Reinhart of Speak Theater Arts with musical direction by Morton Kier, It Gets Better features an ensemble cast of six actors whose personal stories of growing up gay are woven into the production. The production features a combination of original songs and songs by a who's who of popular recording artists, including Gnarls Barkley, Kelly Clarkson, Cher, and songwriter Diane Warren.

Cities visited by the tour to date include Los Angeles (CA), Seattle (WA), Iowa City (IA), College Station (PA), Whitewater (WI), Oxford (OH), Houston (TX), Madison (WI), Milwaukee (WI), Lincoln (NE), and Ogden (UT).

For more information about It Gets Better visit itgetsbettertour.org or email Briannep@gmcla.org.

About Look Up Point Design: Look Up Point Design is a lighting design company that provides lighting designs and consultations for a variety of entertainment formats including theatrical, corporate, live event and televised productions. For more information visit the website at www.lookuppointdesign.com.