Submitted by Pat Price, Gwinnett County, Georgia
Idea posted January 24, 2005
Our public school budget had no money for stage lighting, so my drama partner and I came up with a low budget alternative. We bought halogen work lights and hung them from the ceiling. The lights clamp onto the crosspieces that hold up the ceiling tiles. The lights stay up year around with the cords wrapped up. When we need them, we attach heavy duty extension cords and run them across the ceiling and down to the outlets. We plug all of the extension cords into surge protector outlet strips with the on/off switch. We have the main spots plugged into one strip, a center spot plugged into another, and footlights plugged into a third. All three of those strips are then plugged into one more strip. In this way, we can turn all the lights off and on with one switch, or we can turn each spot on and off separately. In another set-up, I ran another spot and switch for the chorus. I placed the strip/switch right by me so I could light them up only when they sang. It worked great! The halogen work lights we used are those with orange bases, wire light guards, and clamps. They are very bright and do a good job of lighting up the stage. They are very effective, very user-friendly, easy to disassemble and take down (the fire marshall requires us to take them back down), and not expensive at all.