SOURCE LIGHTING IN THEATRICAL PRODUCTION by Joel Rubin his past July I had the opportunity to participate in a panel on "The Changing Infrastructure of Performance Spaces in the Era of Solid State Lighting" at the NATEAC Conference in New York City. This article comes from the preparation I did in anticipation of the freewheeling discussion that would take place among the participants. To begin with, if you go back and read that panel title again, one might more accurately add the word "pending," so that the last phrase reads "in the Pending Era of Solid State Lighting." I say pending because we are somewhere just past the starting line in a trajectory of vast change-the end result is more or less clearly in view, but neither the course or its duration is firmly in sight. Solid state lighting sources describe light-emitting diodes or LEDs. You may live in a community where street lights and traffic signals have already been converted to LEDs. Architects are increasingly using LED sources for decorative lighting of building façades, with the added advantage of changing colors and introducing patterns in the façade lighting. LEDs made up in ribbon form now trace the structure of bridges. The Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in New York City is now illuminated with LED lamps. Such uses have been motivated largely in terms of saving electrical energy and also by the tiny size of the photos by mike wood The Martin MAc 350 Entour automated spot luminaire and its LEDs and lenses. f a l l 2012 theatre design & technology 19