ABOUT ILLUMINATI CREATIVE SERVICES

homepage
Dorian Kelly's CV

ABOUT ILLUMINATI
Click here for profile article from L&SI
For a glimpse into my philosophy and process of lighting design read this

Since 1964: A professional stage lighting designer, festival director, artist booker, exhibition designer, community projects leader, theatre director,  as well as  theatre consultant, stage and architectural lighting designer, sound  designer, scenic designer, production electrician, chief electrician, pyrotechnician,  water effects designer  scriptwriter, rigger, lecturer on theatre technology and performance  art,.   Co-Founder of Colchester festival,  Loves arts, theatre and show business, and accepts no substitutes for  quality and innovation. Professional grade member of:  The Association of Lighting Designers,  Association of Theatre Technicians, serving on the association council for a term of office , member of the  Association of Event Organisers. director of Illuminati and Theatre Despatch.

Dorian is occasionally available for tours, pantos, lighting design, and wicker-bottom chair repairing .... But be warned, working with Dorian can be seriously interesting. It never works out quite how you expect - but always better than you hoped!

Lets be frank. Illuminati has recently downsized and is now very much a one-man business - or, more lyrically, a one-man band. Ostensibly retired from theatre on the general principle that he was far too old, knackered and lazy to climb ladders and stay up all night, and far too deaf to go on being a theatre sound specialist, Dorian formed Illuminati with his brother Simon in 1980, drawing upon the strengths of each to create a business which now operates internationally - if intermittently - with a client backlist which reads like who's who.

Dorian has worked as theatre director, jobbing actor, sound specialist and lighting designer and special effects guru ever since first appearing professionally as "Tiny Tim" at Colchester Rep. as soon as he was old enough to get his licence. Simon also cut his teeth at the Colchester RepertoryTheatre and the Bristol Old Vic, becoming a jobbing actor, appearing in the West End, on television and throughout Europe, later acting as negotiator and management specialist.

Simon now finds it ever so much more financially rewarding to run a product development company specialising in inventions in the communications and leisure industry, and is developing new ideas all the time, some of which are Dorian's patents.

The theatre and design side is operated by Dorian, with the help of a small but enthusiastic team. This team includes his son Sam, a freeelance artist and theatre practitioner, and daughter Emma who has worked as production manager for a large touring circus show "Spirit of the Horse" and also taken a show of her own to Edinburgh. We also employ visual and multimedia artists, an unemployed opera singer and assorted experienced technicians. When he is not directing Shakespeare and largish festivals, Dorian also lectures worldwide on the subject of smoke, fog and atmospheric effects - a subject on which he can talk (and does if you are not careful) for three days on end, never once repeating himself.

For a glimpse into my philosophy and process of lighting design read this

 

DORIAN KELLY
CURRICULUM VITAE:

LIGHTING DESIGNER, THEATRE DIRECTOR,  FESTIVALS DIRECTOR,
ARTS BUILDINGS CONSULTANT  AND TECHNOLOGY CHAMPION

“ Hire Dorian Kelly and you get something original, something thoughtful, something unusual. But you get  something maybe you don’t expect and its always likely to amaze…… indefatigable and innovative….”   article ,  Cue Magazine,1997
 “The best planned pub theatre in London” (The Act Inn, Brewer Street) Time Out magazine- Theatre equipped and co-run by Dorian Kelly
“Can this boy do the biz or what?” – Leslie Pringle,  Wildfire Productions,  Venice Beach California on the subject of patented design ideas.
 “Sure can make Chicken Soup outa chicken sh*t” – Brookie Starduz , principal dancer, Chicago Dance Co.
 “The minute I sat down with him, I knew this job was going to be…fun! Cracking stuff! ” Ken Campbell.
“Extraordinarily impressive” (most of Greenwich) on the subject of the largest themed bonfire in the world and accompanying firework display.
“Thanks its exactly what I wanted “ ( The designer of a "theatrical millionaire"s £19m Belgravia home about hidden electroluminescent and fibre optic lights in a crystal staircase)

"..Who was inspired enough to invite Dorian Kelly to speak of the poetics of light with such passion? A man who was able to put into words so elequently what we, who care about light and lighting,feel. More than a few had tears in their eyes..." John Watt, reviewing Showlight Conference 2009

" .. Dorian's seminar was incredibly emotional and was a thrill for everyone to hear. I hope he repeats it again so more can hear it. It truly represented the spirit of Showlight." Gary Fails CEO City Theatrical, Canada

 Employment:           
            Residences at:
            Colchester Repertory Theatre: Lighting Designer
            Dundee Repertory Theatre: Lighting Designer and Chief electrician
            Leicester Phoenix:Lighting Designer and Chief Electrician
            Bournemouth Palace Court Theatre: Ch.LX and LD
            Glyndbourne Opera : Electrician
            The Mermaid Theatre: Chief Technician and Lighting designer
            Assistant to Joe Davis at H.M. Tennant.
            Greenwich Theatre: Chief Electrician
                        And others…

Lighting and / or  Directing @ 
Edinburgh, Various years since 1964,
The Roebuck Theatre Tottenham Ct Rd
The Kings Head Theatre
The Orange Tree Theatre
The Finborough Theatre
The Old Red Lion, Islington
Riverside Studios
Creek Rd Studios
The Barn, Sidcup
Colchester Arts Centre
Ken Campbell: The Warp (30 Hr marathon performances) ,
The Pidgin Macbeth
One man shows
Grand Theatre of Lemmings: Cannon Show and Cabaret

National Tours of West End musicals and other productions for several
years including:
           
            The Ralph Richardson Repertory Co. ( The Rivals, Lady Widemere's Fan, Heartbreak House) (Touring Electrician)
            My Fair Lady, ( Fitups with the great HM Tennant Team)
           Canterbury Tales (do)
            Marlene Deitrich Live ( personal followspot operator)
            My Fair Lady (revival) ( production electrician)
            The Biograph Girl ( Sound operator plus )
            Beyond the Rainbow (do plus special rainbow effects)
            Singing in the Rain ( water and effects tech)
            The Two Ronnies (3 seasons) (Built the whole damn thing for the fisrt season (thousands of chaser lights) at ten days notice
            Hans Christian Andersen ( Production elecs and sound op. with Tommy Steel. 'Nuff said)
            Charlie Girl Fantastic special effects design and build)
           On the Twentiethy Century (Sound Operator, mixing twenty radios and forty musicians plus effects and foldback)
            Zeigfield ( amazing effects design and build)
            The Tommy Steel Show ( 10 Sundays of pure wading through treacle)
           ... plus about 50 bands and groups, lights, sound and video specialities)
.
            Freelance work for various TV companies in various capacities.
            Provision of special effects, electroluminescent and fibre-optic specialties

Assorted:
Tours with:
                        Harold Fielding Ltd.
                        Pola Jones Ltd.
                        Chinese State Circus
                        Welsh National Theatre (In English)
                        Cwmni Theatr Cymru (in Welsh)
                        Irish National Opera
                        Illusionists, various
                        Various rock bands large and small scale
                        Corporate Presentations

Fringe
                        1972  Set up Pub Theatre with Amos Mokadi, Israeli director: The Act Inn, at the Duke of Argyll in Brewer Street, Soho. Described by Time  Out as the Best Fringe Theatre in London: Ran for three years with many well  known  performers

Older previous projects

 

Teaching at:
            Central School of Art,  (Visiting lecturer.)
            Central School of Drama (V.L)
            Rose Bruford College    (V.L)
            Middlesex University (VL)
            Various Video training courses, including
            Interactive video at Essex University
            Teenagers Summer Courses, eight years
            Masterclasses for Amateur Lighting Designers
            Light and Sound college, Tampere, Finland: Atmospheric effects course
            Norway association of Lighting designers: atmospheric effects course
           
Business Interests
                        Director of Illuminati: / illuminati productions / the Guerrilla Shakespeare Company
                        Director of Theatre Despatch:  London’s first and best  publicity distribution  service
                        Associate Director of New Route Theatre