theatre lights
I haven't been under theatre lights since 1981.
Yesterday we loaded in the play Sordid Lives at the Kentucky Center's MeX Theatre. The director and cast members arranged and spiked furniture, figured out exact locations for people to stand, and determined how to load a person into a coffin and then roll the coffin onto the stage area (said coffin being on loan from a funeral parlor and also being the most expensive prop by far -- if it gets scratched, it will probably wipe out the show's entire profits). I learned that when a gun is used in a show, said gun is kept locked in the theatre manager's office. The theatre company has to sign a statement declaring that the firing pin has been removed and indicating which single person in the cast will be responsible for fetching the weapon from the office and returning it there; no one else in the cast is allowed to touch the gun. The same procedure is followed even if the gun isn't real.
Once everything was arranged, the theatre technician took to the lighting grid on a couple of impossibly high and unpleasant-looking ladders, positioning and focusing various kinds of lights. While she did this, the fluorescent lights in the theatre were turned off. Little by little, the black floor became bathed in a warm glow -- and it became a stage.
Those lights are magical. Under them, what had been a bunch of rehearsals in a generic room became a Real Show.