Chris Thielking

Background

About Chris Thielking

For over a decade I freelanced as an electrician, master electrician, associate lighting designer and lighting designer in New York City and internationally. I have held positions including the Associate lighting designer for Here Lies Love (original production off broadway), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Broadway), Jagged Little Pill (Broadway), The Humans (First National Tour). Before the pandemic I took a position as an adjunct associate professor of theatrical lighting design and technology at Montclair State University. I helped lead the lighting students in course work as well as production work, advising primarily on the technical aspects of production. I held this position for three semesters, leaving to begin the next branch of my career. Coming out of the pandemic I pivoted my career into the world of live events. I began as the head of lighting for an event space on the southern tip of Manhattan. I helped interface with clients, coordinate labor and equipment, build the lighting portion of contracts for clients. While in this position I helped create packaged looks and standards for us to sell our clients, and operated as the lighting designer for on site for all weddings and any large scale event or for clients who had specific needs requiring the presence of a creative lighting professional. When a position became available at Michael Andrews Audio Visual Services as their head field lighting technician and designer as well as their head draftsperson, I applied and moved to the company I am now with. Over my first year with MAAVS my position shifted to one where I was deployed only for large scale shows, and the rest of my time is spent as the lead draftsperson for the company. Since this shift began there have been almost no shows with CAD drawings that our company has done which I did not draw. I am capable of remaining calm and thinking clearly through moments of crisis and stress. I have spent my entire career learning and becoming proficient at juggling multiple jobs at the same time. Along the way I have built many interpersonal skills, and honed my ability to work across department lines to accomplish complicated and dynamic final looks. Over my 15 years in this industry I have harnessed skills in Vectorworks draftings and realistic 3D renderings, Lightwright, Filemaker Pro, Microstoft Office including Teams, Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and R2 management.