Local Man to Celebrate Anniversary ‘Lighting up the Stage’

When the curtain rises on My Fair Lady at the Westchester Broadway Theatre on Sept. 22, lighting designer Andrew Gmoser, a Yorktown resident, will be working on his 88th show at the Elmsford theater.

"In a play, lighting doesn't just distinguish indoors from outdoors or day from night," Gmoser explained. "It has an essential role—it establishes and changes the mood throughout the play."

Gmoser (pronounced “Moser”) first found interest in theater production when he was 15 and a member of the theater group at Roosevelt High School in Yonkers. While other kids were fighting for lead acting parts, he found building sets more appealing.

He gained additional set design experience by volunteering for local community theaters, and while still in high school, helped to establish the Asbury Summer Theatre for the Asbury United Methodist Church in Yonkers. 

In 1988 he formed a theater lighting company and began working part-time at Westchester Broadway Theatre where his first assignment was light designing for Side by Side by Sondheim.

Soon he began taking assignments from small theaters to light their plays and in some cases helped them buy, install and program the lighting equipment. His past client list includes Mac-Haydn Theatre, a summer stock theater in the village of Chatham in upstate New York, and in Yorktown Heights.

He also played a consulting role in the purchase and placement of the lighting equipment in the new auditorium at .

Gmoser reads every page of the script before determining how to light the stage, consulting with the director, choreographer, set designer and sound engineer. Safety is a paramount consideration. "In Brigadoon for example," Gmoser pointed out, "the actors rush up and down the aisles and the lighting director must take this into account."

For a new production, Gmoser's normal approach is to work with the budget, determine the lighting needs, order and install additional equipment if needed, and finally, program the computer that controls lighting throughout the show. He tweaks and readjusts lighting during the "shake-down cruise rehearsals” held the week before opening day.

Invariably in the theater business, Gmoser works a demanding schedule with long hours, but he still finds time to cheer for son Thomas and daughter Elizabeth, 12-year-old twins, when they play for the Yorktown Youth Soccer Club team his lighting company sponsors.