Aja Jackson, a senior theatre and dance major from Bellevue, Neb., is one of six national finalists for the prestigious Gilbert Hemsley Lighting Internship.
“My first reaction was, ‘Oh my gosh, did I just read that e-mail correctly?’” Jackson said. “I was so excited and just thrilled to the bone. It’s very exciting, and it’s so rare to have this opportunity.”
The internship and just being a finalist is prestigious for both Jackson and the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film.
“It’s as good as it gets in the lighting field,” said Assistant Professor of Theatre Laurel Shoemaker. “Even finalists get work out of this process. They meet professional designers and assistant designers and are snapped up just from the process of being a finalist.”
The Hemsley Lighting Internship is open to both Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts graduates in lighting design, though graduating MFA students are more commonly selected.
“Commonly the finalists are graduate students, so the other members of her finalist group will probably be graduate students,” Shoemaker said.
The selected intern is immersed in all aspects of the lighting design process and participates in a nine-month internship with lighting designers from Lincoln Center Festival, Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, New York City Opera and New York City Ballet.
The internship is named after Gilbert V. Hemsley, Jr., who created lighting for the New York City Opera, Martha Graham Dance Company, Broadway plays and musicals, The Metropolitan Opera, American Ballet Theatre, among many others. Hemsley passed away from cancer in 1983.
“Gil Hemsley was a well-renowned lighting designer,” Shoemaker said. “He was a great teacher. He taught at Wisconsin, and then lit a lot of New York-based productions, like New York City Ballet and New York City Opera. Gil has left this huge legacy of this internship to give young designers a leg up. It’s a pretty great deal for our school to break into this competition.”
As a finalist, Jackson will travel to New York March 16-17 for the Hemsley Portfolio Review at The School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center.
“They have every second of our day planned out, which is terrific, so it’s going to be a very packed two days,” Jackson said.
She will participate in individual interviews with the selection committee and a portfolio review.
“There’s a very detailed, involved portfolio review where you have Tony Award-winning lighting designers, Broadway production electricians and resident lighting designers at the New York City Opera and New York City Ballet all there,” Jackson said. “You’re going to show your work to them, and they’re going to help you show your work better, so it’s very constructive, as well.”
There will also be workshops and seminars, a moving light seminar, and equipment demonstrations, as well as a backstage tour of the Metropolitan Opera.
“It sounds so busy, and yes, very invaluable,” Jackson said. “And you tour the Metropolitan Opera, as well, which is just a cherry on top of the whole sundae.”
Jackson graduated from Bellevue East High School in Bellevue, Neb., where she began her lighting design career.
“I have done lighting since I was in high school,” she said. “It was the most challenging thing I had done in the theatre realm. I had tried everything else. There was always something about lighting and electrics that was always hard for me to do, and that’s why I always wanted to do it.”
Shoemaker, her lighting design professor in the Carson School, said Jackson is both talented and organized.
“She will organize you, and for lighting designers, that’s really important,” Shoemaker said. “She knows how to get things done in a calm, collected manner, which is really great.”
Jackson served as the assistant lighting designer for the School of Music and Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film co-production of “Candide” in February. She was the lighting designer for University Theatre’s “Bright Ideas” and “Agravio.”
“Through the Carson School, I’m able to get my name out there as a lighting designer, and now I’ve done work for outside companies around Lincoln,” Jackson said. “It’s really exciting, and so much of it has to do with the education that I’m getting here.”
She also assisted Shoemaker with lighting dance at the University of Iowa in 2011 and was an assistant lighting designer in 2012 for the Off-Broadway production of “Flipside: The Patti Page Story” in New York, where she also worked with Shoemaker.
“It was really nice to go and work in New York on a show,” Jackson said. “That’s the goal for so many theatre people who are seeking to be professionals is to do a show in New York. It was really nice because at the end of the day, it’s still a theatre. You’re in New York in this great place with tons of theatre, but you’re still doing theatre.”
Jackson has also spent the past two summers as an apprentice with the Santa Fe Opera.
“It’s crazy, and it’s busy,” Jackson said. “But it’s such a great company to work at. The work they put on is absolutely beautiful. When you’re working on something that’s beautiful, it makes all of the man hours and laborious things that you put into it worth it.”
Shoemaker said Jackson makes an impression wherever she works.
“When I go back, and I don’t have Aja with me, everyone asks where Aja is,” Shoemaker said. “She makes a great impression on everyone she meets, It’s her work ethic and her organizational skills and her artistic skills that make her the whole package.”
Jackson’s goal is to be a lighting designer in New York.
“I would really love to be a lighting designer based in New York,” she said. “I want to light dance, that’s something that’s very important to me, and opera. I feel very attached to those forms of theatre. To be able to work on Broadway shows would also be very exciting because the scale and the caliber you’re working in is just unfathomable. I’ve always had this desire to freelance and be a lighting designer and also be able to design shows at the Metropolitan Opera.”
Her advice to prospective students is to do everything.
“It’s going to be that one project that’s going to change everything for you,” Jackson said. “And sometimes it’s really hard to say, okay, I’m going to do this again. But it will be worth it.”