Prepping to Teach a single lighting course in a non production track program
Hi Folks,
A brief backstory: I've been teaching college level tech theatre for almost 20 years at a couple different colleges. My current school (about 8 years) really has no production track. The theatre degree itself is only 11 years old. I'm the only fulltime tech/designer/instructor on staff (non-tenure). So like lots of you I wear many hats. During my time at this college I've taught stagecraft and an occasional stage design course. I handle the Scenic Design/Build/Lights for our faculty theatre productions. But I haven't taught a lighting course in almost 10 years and the last time I did LED was just gaining steam.
My question for y'all, what would you handle in a single semester lighting course/overview? This is such a wide topic it's hard to pinpoint what to teach our students in one semester. Currently thinking of dividing class into parts like Design/Hang/Program. What do you all think would be most useful to walk away from a single class with? I am reluctant to dive much into vectorworks and lighting plots due to the time constraints but very open to hear opinions on this.
Incidentally, my preferred text seems to be out of print (Essig- Lighting and Design Idea) and now I wonder if a text is even worth pursuing or if I just go with lecture/videos for the classroom aspects.
Any thoughts to share? Thanks!!