While every other kid in the audience was watching Julie Andrews fly across the stage in Peter Pan, I was staring at the lights.
I couldn’t help it. My grandmother Ann used to take my brother Jeff and me to Saturday matinees on Broadway — The King and I with Yul Brynner, Man of La Mancha with Richard Kiley, South Pacific, Oklahoma, Christmas pageants at Radio City. Her sister Francis had been a Ziegfeld Girl back in the vaudeville days, so theatre was in the blood. But while Grandma Ann watched the performers, I watched the lights. The way a single light could change the entire mood of a room — that was the thing that got me.
That obsession took me to Boston University to study theatrical design and stage lighting. I had a choice between Yale and BU, but BU had something Yale didn’t — an incredible music scene. And a little bit of luck.
As part of the BU Theatre Design curriculum, I was required to work professional productions for course credit. My first assignment? Spotlight operator at the Fenway Theatre on Mass Ave. The headliner? Local. The band? Aerosmith.
That one gig changed everything.
I was invited to “audition” forlighting designer for the band on March 20, 1973, at Paul’s Mall on Boylston Street in Boston. Little did I know WBCN-FM was there to broadcast the whole set live.
I’d listened to the album a few times. No rehearsal. No prep. Just go.
Steven Tyler and the guys tore through “Mama Kin,” “Train Kept A Rollin’,” and “Walkin’ The Dog” — raw, loud, and right on the edge of breaking wide open. That broadcast became one of the most legendary early Aerosmith recordings, bootlegged and remastered for decades after.
I became their first lighting designer that night. Over the months that followed, I redesigned their stage backdrop and created their art nouveau logo — all while trying to keep one foot in school and the other on stages across New England.
Finishing college didn’t stand a chance.
What followed was 2 decades on the road with some of the wildest acts in rock: Ted Nugent, Boston, Sammy Hagar, The Sweet, Sly and the Family Stone, Parliament Funkadelic, the rock opera Tommy, and more. I loved every minute of it. But after years of never being in one place longer than a couple of days, I was ready to land somewhere.
Hollywood was on the verge of the video revolution when I arrived in the early ’80s. I worked as a lighting designer on films like This Is Spinal Tap and Blue Chips, and shot as a director of photography for MTV, VH-1, Nickelodeon, HBO, Showtime, and the broadcast networks. Spinal Tap was later selected for the National Film Registry — not bad for a kid who couldn’t stop looking at the lights.
Then one day, in the middle of prepping yet another lighting rig, something shifted. A quiet realization — like a spotlight turning inward. I wasn’t meant to spend my life lighting other people’s stories. I was supposed to tell my own.
They say “write what you know.” For me, that meant animals. I grew up around them, connected to them in a way I didn’t fully understand until later. I took a class on animal communication — part curiosity, part calling — and it led to an unexpected partnership. Together, we started a small rescue that served the Westside of L.A. While saving animals, I was also taking writing courses, slowly building a new kind of life — one story, one rescue, one quiet revelation at a time.
Then came the plot twist. The property I was renting was suddenly sold. Rents shot through the roof, and I had no choice but to move far outside the city.
At the time, it felt like a setback. But I’ve learned that what feels like an ending is usually a beginning in disguise. I landed in a cabin in the San Bernardino National Forest — a world away from L.A. — and it turned out to be exactly where I needed to be. The quiet, the trees, the space to think. This is where the stories come from now.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy your visit — and if you’d like to connect, drop me a note through the contact page. I’d love to hear from you.
Richard