Ken Billington

Ken Billington
Born	(1946-10-29) October 29, 1946 (age 78) White Plains, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Lighting designer
Awards	Tony Award for Best Lighting Design (1997)

Ken Billington (born October 29, 1946) is an American lighting designer. He began his career in New York City working as an assistant to Tharon Musser.^[1]

He was born in White Plains, New York, the son of Kenneth Arthur (an automobile dealer) and Ruth (Roane) Billington.

Billington has 96 Broadway productions to his credit including Copperfield, Checking Out, Moon Over Buffalo, Grind, Hello, Dolly!, Meet Me in St. Louis, On the Twentieth Century, Side by Side by Sondheim, Lettice and Lovage, Tru, The Scottsboro Boys, and Sweeney Todd.

Off-Broadway productions include Sylvia, London Suite, Annie Warbucks, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, The Lisbon Traviata, What the Butler Saw, and Fortune and Men's Eyes.

Billington was the principal lighting designer for Radio City Music Hall from 1979 to 2004, where he created the lighting for the world-famous Christmas and Easter Spectaculars.^[1] While there, he also created the lighting for the stage adaptation of the 1937 animated musical film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Other projects include lighting the 1975/76 season for the American Shakespeare Festival at Stratford, Connecticut as well as projects such as Turandot at the Vienna State Opera, to nightclub acts for headliners Ann-Margret, Shirley MacLaine, and Liberace.

Billington's lighting is featured in the extravaganza Fantasmic at Disneyland. His architectural designs can be seen in restaurants and clubs from Manhattan to Asia. Ken also designed the lighting plot and original design for all four current Dolly Parton Dixie Stampede locations.

Billington has been nominated for the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design nine times and in 1997 won for the revival of Chicago, which also garnered him the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design.

In November 2015, Billington was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.^[2]

Awards and nominations

Year	Title	Award	Category	Result
1974	The Visit	Tony Award	Best Lighting Design	Nominated
1978	Working	Tony Award	Best Lighting Design	Nominated
1979	Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street	Tony Award	Best Lighting Design	Nominated
		Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Lighting Design	Nominated
1983	Foxfire	Tony Award	Best Lighting Design	Nominated
		Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Lighting Design	Nominated
1984	End of the World	Tony Award	Best Lighting Design	Nominated
1985	Grind	Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Lighting Design	Nominated
1997	Chicago	Tony Award	Best Lighting Design	Won
		Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Lighting Design	Won
		Outer Critics Circle Award	Best Lighting Design	Nominated
2006	The Drowsy Chaperone	Tony Award	Best Lighting Design in a Musical	Nominated
2008	Sunday in the Park with George	Tony Award	Best Lighting Design in a Musical	Nominated
		Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Lighting Design	Nominated
		Outer Critics Circle Award	Outstanding Lighting Design	Won
2010	Sondheim on Sondheim	Outer Critics Circle Award	Outstanding Lighting Design	Nominated
2011	The Scottsboro Boys	Tony Award	Best Lighting Design in a Musical	Nominated
2013	Chaplin	Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Lighting Design	Nominated
		Outer Critics Circle Award	Outstanding Lighting Design	Nominated
2022	New York, New York	Tony Award	Best Lighting Design in a Musical	Nominated
		Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Lighting Design	Nominated

References

1. Rothstein, Mervyn (December 25, 2008). "A Life in the Theatre: Ken Billington". Playbill. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
2. "Members". Theater Hall of Fame.

External links

• Ken Billington at the Internet Broadway Database
• Biography American Theatre Wing
• The Lighting Archive complete lighting paperwork for Sweeney Todd