Tharon Musser
Tharon Musser (January 8, 1925 – April 19, 2009) was an American lighting designer who worked on more than 150 Broadway productions. She was termed the "Dean of American Lighting Designers" and is considered one of the pioneers in her field.
Musser was best known for her work on the musicals A Chorus Line and Dreamgirls. A Chorus Line was the first production of Broadway to use a fully computerized lighting console instead of manually operated "piano boards".
Biography
Tharon Myrene Musser was born in Virginia in 1925.
The daughter of a clergyman, she often recalled that her family couldn't afford electricity, so she grew up with candles and gaslights. She graduated from Berea College (Kentucky) in 1946 and later attended Yale University, obtaining her MFA in 1950. Her first Broadway lighting credit was José Quintero's staging of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night in 1956 at the original Helen Hayes Theatre.
She designed on Broadway from 1956 to 1999 and her long list of credits include Li'l Abner, Shinbone Alley, Once Upon a Mattress, Here's Love, Any Wednesday, Golden Boy, Flora, The Red Menace, Kelly, Mame, Hallelujah, Baby!, The Fig Leaves Are Falling, Applause, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Creation of the World and Other Business, The Sunshine Boys, A Little Night Music, Romantic Comedy, Mack and Mabel, The Good Doctor, Pacific Overtures, The Act, Chapter Two, They're Playing Our Song, Ballroom, 42nd Street, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Jerry's Girls, The Odd Couple, Biloxi Blues, Lost in Yonkers, The Goodbye Girl, and Laughter on the 23rd Floor.
