The Global Media Site for Entertainment.
Menu
Lighting designer Marsha Stern discusses the finances of a freelance career starting in NYC nightclubs in the 1970s. She transitioned to “architainment” in the 1990s and joined Acclaim Lighting, the architecture arm of ADJ Group in the 2010s.
Marsha was interviewed by lighting designer Ethan Steimel on the Artistic Finance podcast.
Marsha moved to New York City for a career in music: playing, composing, and producing. She got a job as a publicist at the Howard Bloom organization where she was introduced to disco and rock’n’roll clients. Those business relationships morphed into friendships and a series of jobs with the Joe Long Sound, a production team. When that disbanded, Marsha was offered $35 to work lights at a local club in downtown NYC.
She became friends with many top recording DJs which resulted in a job at New York, New York, a prominent club in midtown Manhattan (the owners were rivals of Studio 54). A friend in charge of lighting was leaving for a summer residency on Fire Island.
He said, “Marsha, you know the music. If you can figure out the controls, you’ve got a job.” That started more than a decade of designing lights for clubs.
Marsha was asked to look at the lighting in an artistic way, which is why it was important that she knew the music. “I was fortunate that I also had the technical capabilities to understand what was going on and how to do this. That’s a whole other skill set. Just because you can flip a light switch doesn’t mean you can wire a room.”
Since the pandemic, Marsha has tapped back into the music producing side of her career. Marsha inherited much of the music of her friend, DJ Roy Thode. Marsha saved more than 100 reel to reel tapes that she has been digitizing for the past 15 years. She discusses the music and the NYC nightlife of the 1970s and 1980s on her podcast Heartbeat of the Dancefloor®.️ An upcoming episode will focus on lighting disco with Anne Militello (NYC nightclub lighting designer), Paul Gregory (Focus Lighting / Saturday Night Fever dance floor), and Jason Kantrowitz and Ken Billington (Broadway / The Red Parrot).
She introduced the architects to moving head lights by proposing various ways to use Vari-lites. At the time, Vari-lites could only be rented, so a long term rental was arranged to use them at Caesar’s. Marsha clarified that this was a moment in which actual moving head lights were used. Not moving mirrors or scanners but actual moving lights. Vari-lite was the only company that could produce them because of copyright at the time. For the previous 10 years Marsha had been working with them in the clubs. That knowledge was transferred to architecture.
The transition into architecture also caused Marsha to incorporate as Marsha Stern Lighting Design & Consulting, Inc. That was for liability protection and was actively used for her work as an independent designer, programmer and consultant until 2017 when she joined Acclaim Lighting, the architectural division of ADJ Group. The corporation is registered in New York state even though Marsha hasn’t used it for a few years. She isn’t seeking out lighting design work but anticipates a job will come her way. When it does, it will require the structure of the corporation.
In response to Ethan asking if the corporation helped with a retirement savings structure, Marsha explained that it didn’t change anything. In the nightclubs, she was often on the payroll of a venue. As such, a portion of her checks went to build her social security, which she opted into during the pandemic. In the 1970s, she would sometimes get payment half in cash, which didn’t go toward social security or into a retirement account. Marsha eventually started setting money aside from her 1099 paychecks. She started with CDs at her bank and eventually moved to stocks and bonds in brokerage accounts.
For Marsha, 2020 and the Covid-19 Pandemic brought everything to a grinding halt, including her tenure with ADJ Group. During the past 2 years Marsha has delved into a couple of her passion projects which resulted in creating a legacy website dedicated to Roy Thode an iconic DJ from the glory days of disco. That led to her podcast, The Heartbeat Of The Dance Floor®. “I’m embracing what seems to be my third career as a Nightlife Historian, which combines my life experiences from both the musical and lighting/production world.” These new projects are under the umbrella of Backlit Productions, LLC which Marsha formed in Florida in 2011 for her music-oriented ventures.
“The entertainment business in general is made up of loving relationships, that are probably more friendship than business sometimes. And sometimes those friendships are more business than friendships. Which is why they are sustainable.” Ethan observed Marsha’s energy and love of music, lighting, and her collaborators. That energy is infectious and carried into the end of the interview with a discussion about LDI. Marsha and Ethan will both be in Las Vegas in November to record a live episode of Artistic Finance.
Watch the full interview here.
Marsha Stern, a lighting designer, programmer, technician and production manager who’s career began in the music business and spans the NYC Nightclub and Special Events circuit from the late 70’s through the mid 90’s when she began to pioneer using entertainment technologies in architectural lighting design, now known as Architainment.
Artistic Finance is a podcast hosted by lighting designer Ethan Steimel. He interviews live events workers. The weekly show answers common financial questions and provides a resource for artists to have their finance questions answered.
John Rayment: Interview With OA Il Trovatore Lighting Director
Ethan has designed lights for Masters of Illusion--Live! (US/Canada Tour), La Bohéme (El Paso Opera), The Baker’s Wife (Theatre Row). As a lighting director he has worked at CNN, Bloomberg, and Broadway HD. He is a co-producer of Broadway's A Christmas Carol and hosts Artistic Finance, a weekly podcast about finance for artists.
Read Full Profile
© 2021 TheatreArtLife. All rights reserved.
Thank you so much for reading, but you have now reached your free article limit for this month.
Our contributors are currently writing more articles for you to enjoy.
To keep reading, all you have to do is become a subscriber and then you can read unlimited articles anytime.
Your investment will help us continue to ignite connections across the globe in live entertainment and build this community for industry professionals.
