by Kim Hilsenbeck

A narrow, homemade wooden staircase leads up to a light booth in the back of the Wimberley Players theater. Climbing it requires sure footing.

It leads to a tiny space, roughly 6’x4’, with a small desk and one chair. A light console sits on the desk, connected by computer to all the lights on the stage below.

Weeks before a production has its opening night, the lighting designer programs all of the light cues into that computer, automating the lighting sequences in the show based on a series of cues that match up to the script.

Getting to that point, however, takes hours of work.

“Most people don’t realize how much goes into the lighting,” according to Bill Peeler, artist director and lighting designer for the playhouse.

“If it’s done well, you shouldn’t think much about,” he said. “The key is to make the lights seem natural and organic.”

Before any work, he first meets with the director.

“Everything comes from the script,” Peeler said. “The responsibility of a director is to interpret the script and [develop the] design concept. They share that with the design team so everybody is on the same page. Once we understand [that], then I take the script and look for ways that I can help tell the story with light.”

Peeler then produces several items.

“The script is the first product. You go through and find all the places where you feel there need to be changes with the light,” he said. “You then talk with director. Then I come up with cue sheet.”

That’s like a guide explaining the different cues, including what page they’re on and what happens.

“The cue sheet is the connection between the stage manager and the [lighting] operator who will run that cue on the console,” Peeler said.

“Eventually what I’ll do is come up with a light plot – that’s a layout of the stage, the way the set appears,” he explained. “Every symbol on the cue sheet represents the hardware on the stage – the physical lights. I decide where they’re going to be placed.”

“Basically it’s like a musical composer. A composer will choose the musical instruments based on the sound they want,” Peeler said.

It’s the same with lights – he moves them around and decides which ones to use.

Peeler has been involved in the theater one way or another since high school in Gonzales, Texas.

“I was blessed with a very inspirational high school drama teacher; I got into it from day one,” he said. “I did the acting thing, not necessarily very successfully, but [I] always enjoyed the tech.”

Peeler continued in theater at Southwest Texas University, now Texas State University, in San Marcos. He majored in theater, which is how he met his wife of 37 years. They were dance partners in “Once Upon a Mattress.”

The couple married with still a year left in school. After graduation, they moved to Jackson, Mississippi where he earned his Master of Fine Arts.

Much of his education was theoretical, Peeler said. It was his involvement with the Jackson Ballet Company that gave him “real” lighting education. He worked down in the trenches, so to speak.

“A lot of it was by the seat of the pants,” Peeler said.

He became an assistant to a professor who worked at the ballet company doing scenery and lighting. Peeler eventually became the stage manager.

“It was on the job training,” he said.

Peeler, who lives in Kyle, now teaches Intro to Fine Arts at Texas State.

“That pays the bills,” he said.

Peeler seems fairly well known in the local theater community and occasionally takes jobs at various venues, depending on his schedule.

“This is a business that you get jobs through contacts,” he said. “But doing lighting design keeps me off the streets,” he quipped.

He first got involved with the Wimberley Players doing lighting design for the “Man of La Mancha” in 2007. The theater, in existence since 1979, moved into its present location at 450 Old Kyle Road in 2004. Its inaugural show was “1776.”

The 5,500 sq. ft. Wimberley Playhouse seats 117; it’s a cozy, intimate space and many shows sell out.

Tucked in a building just off the main road and not far from Wimberley’s vibrant downtown area, the theater building is a maze of rooms and back corridors. Oversize posters grace the walls of the lobby, heralding the many performances that have taken place on the stage.

Volunteer and spokesperson Julie Ray provided a tour and a history of the Wimberley Players, who, following a year or so at an elementary school, converted an old greenhouse into a 77-seat theater. When the present space became available, Ray said the players took the opportunity to expand.

Peeler was recently asked to become the playhouse’s artistic director, which he accepted.

Has he ever missed a light cue?

“Every now and then,” he admitted.

How do you recover?

“That depends on how good you are,” he said with a laugh.

He shared a story that happened recently.

“I just finished an opera in SA and that happened. I was following along [the script] and something was distracting me,” he said. “Toward the finale, someone asked me a question or whatever and I missed a cue. The next cue was supposed to be a big flash and then a black out.”

He paused with dramatic effect.

“The advantage there is I designed the show, programmed the show and was running the show, which isn’t typical,” he said. “I was able to jump ahead and skip to the next lighting cue.”

Typically the lighting designer doesn’t run the lights – it’s rare anymore that Peeler is even behind a console.

Conventional theater wisdom is that is once the show starts, that’s it – no changes.

“But if I’m running the console, and I see something that needs to be fixed, I fix it,” he said.

Is he a perfectionist?

“A lot of lighting designers tend to be OCD,” he said.

Yet he still finds the whole process a bit magical.

“One of the things that fascinates me is that lighting does seem magical – it’s something we don’t really understand,” Peeler said. “We’re always around [light] but we really don’t understand how it affects us and how we’re moved by it.”

He was bit by the lighting bug many years ago.

“I was fascinated with lights even in high school,” he said. “Lighting is a kind of a weird area because a lot of it is very technical; you’ve got a hardware-centric kind of thing, because you can’t do it without the hardware. But, the hardware is worthless without the art. And a lot of the art is developing an eye for composition and balance and contrast.”

And while Peeler isn’t seeking awards for his lighting design, it would be gratifying to get a little recognition.

“In the vast majority of reviews you see, they talk about the acting, the directing, even the sets. But they never talk about the lights,” he said.

Wimberley Players 2014 Schedule

Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

by Ed Graczyk, weekends April 11-May 4

The Skin of Our Teeth

by Thornton Wilder, weekends June 13-Juy 6

Young Frankenstein

by Mel Brooks, weekends Sept. 12-Oct. 5

Two Noble Kinsmen

by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, weekends Nov. 14-Dec. 7