Niel Galen’s brush with fame happened in the mid-1980s, when the then-design major and now-senior lighting designer spent countless hours at the Krannert Center.
“As a design student, I immersed myself in everything that the College of Fine and Applied Arts and the KCPA had to offer,” says Galen (’87), who’d go on to be lighting director at ABC News and HBO’s Real Sports and a lighting designer/consultant at CNN and MSNBC, among other stops.
“The center was and remains one of the most comprehensive and beautiful performing arts facilities I’ve had the pleasure to work in over the years.
“An outstanding memory of my time working at KCPA is when we had to drive Itzhak Perlman from his dressing room down the backstage hallway to the Foellinger Great Hall, using our indoor forklift. I’m sure OSHA would have had conniptions had they know about our makeshift wheelchair, but Mr. Perlman loved it and it made an indelible image in my head.”
