Ray Oppenheimer

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Lecturer: Lighting Design
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Ray Oppenheimer is a San Francisco Bay Area based lighting designer, educator, scenographer, technologist, and creator who has been bringing his boundless curiosity, chimerical aesthetic, and Sisyphean perseverance to performance design and education since 2005. Ray graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Arts with an emphasis in lighting design from San Francisco State University in the Fall of 2017. He also is an active company member with Mugwumpin and Shotgun Players.

As a lighting designer, Ray has worked with Word For Word, Z Space, piecebypiece productions, ACT, The Magic Theatre, Mugwumpin, Shotgun Players, Center Rep, New Conservatory Theatre Company, Crowded Fire, Santa Cruz Shakespeare Company, Debutants and Vagabonds, David Herrera's Dance Company, and Red Rooster. He has created the original lighting designs for the world premieres of A Tale of Autumn by Christopher Chen, Grandeur by Han Ong, Pen Man Ship by Christina Anderson, Bad Jews by Joshua Harmon, The Virgin with 10k Arrows by Jason Tremblay, Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World by Yussef El Guindi, and Blockbuster Season and In Event of Moon Disaster by Mugwumpin.

Ray was a lecturer at San Francisco State University from 2017 through 2021. As such Ray oversaw the restructuring and modernization of the university's Lightboard Programing class and created a class focusing on the technology involved in virtual performance. He served on SFSU's safety committee and on the hiring committee for the staff props position. Additionally, he developed and taught classes in theatrical lighting design for Redwood High School as a guest artist. Ray has worked with the world-renowned SF MOMA and event lighting industry leaders Got Light to create and administer customized training for their employees.

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