SP3 | fidget & fringearts "Dancers eventually mark patterns over the entire space of the FringeArts theater space, which has never looked more cavernous, due to the sculptural lighting designs by Mark O’Maley, that essays a shadowy world of mazes, darkness one minute or bathing the space with muted blue hues the next. The dancers might be in full motion and there will be a blackout, seconds later they are in another part of the floor already in a different dance as lights come up."
-The Dance Journal
"Bridge and Stoyanova stand downstage, a foot or so apart, in a craggy shock of light (lighting by Mark O'Maley), loosely and unsentimentally holding hands.Sp3, with its droning score; stark, expressionist lighting; and machinist choreography could easily alienate. But I emerge from the performance energized."
- ThINKingDance
BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE | delaware theatre company Grassilli's technical staff is top-shelf, too. He's got a great set to work with courtesy of scenic designer Ted Simpson, a very enjoyable sound design by Josh Navarro, and a world-class lighting design from Mark O'Maley. From the headlights flashing through the windows to the blue flame of the gas burner on the stove, he provides a host of touches that add heft and texture to the production. Daily News, West Chester, PA
2017 IRNE Award Nomination | Best Lighting Design: "Man In Snow" | gloucester stage company MAN IN SNOW | gloucester stage company "Jenna McFarland Lord’s simple set is assisted wonderfully by O’Maley’s lovely sculpted lighting, which is augmented by projections. His design keeps our focus right where it needs to be to follow the narrative’s many jumps in time and place." David Greenham - artsfuse.org
"Horovitz’s staging makes expressive use of the Gloucester Stage space (the set design is by Jenna McFarland Lord). From the movements of the actors, the marked boundaries they do or do not cross, and the lighting (by Mark O’Maley), it’s always clear which scenes are happening in David’s memory, in his imagination, or in the present." Don Aucoin-The Boston Globe
"Mark O'Maley's lighting design layered over the upstage wall suggests the colorful waves of the Northern Lights." -broadwayworld.com
THE CRUCIBLE | Lost nation theater "The Production was presented in the round with audience on all sides, and proved quite effective...Mark O'Maley's dramatic lighting design added to the production's over all polish." -The Times Argus
Erzsébet: The Blood Countess | main street landing "The production was sophisticated and elegant........hauntingly lit by Mark O'Maley" -The Time Argus
MACBETH | stonington opera house "Last week's production of "Macbeth" was technically stunning. The set, lighting, original music and puppets illuminated "the Scottish play" in ways that made it fresh and bold. The sound design and music composed by Amy Altadonna and the lighting by Mark O'Maley gave the production an eerie feel, punctuating and underlining the action on stage. The design elements, including most of Debra Otte's costumes, often captured the subtext of the play in subtle but powerfully meaningful ways.” - Bangor daily news
AS THE EYES OF THE SEAHORSE | nichole canuso dance/mural & the mint/HERE Arts “Along with the normal theatrical lighting, designer Mark O'Maley has set the stage with over 60 mason jars hanging from the ceiling with candles burning low at the base of each jar. The effect is heartwarming and mellowing, and it matches the intended transparency of every song. O'Maley accentuates the mason jar glow with a warm wash of amber, which provides the same simple clarity, joy, and care Kiley and Canuso invite the piece to be.” -theasy.com
“Warm yellow and cool blue lighting by Mark O'Maley mixes with scattered tea lights in mason jars, painting shadows over the space and bathing the dancers in warmth and contrast. Dancers in white swirl through the room like modern-day whirling dervishes, making contact, testing the impact of their bodies against each other, and then dispersing, scattering like leaves.” -stagedandreal.wordpress.com
explanatorium | headlong dance theater "The six performers in orange stand out in the mingling crowd (asked i n advance publicity to wear blue). They speak to us informally and confidentially, giving directions, sharing commentary on their internal lives as they dance, and describing personal experiences of the paranormal. The space figures centrally as a natural locus for thinking about spirit. Mark O'Maley's lighting tinges its soaring dome and arched windows blue or rose." - The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Headlong Dance Theater's EXPLANATORIUM takes place within the majestic, slightly dilapidated interior of the Rotunda's domed sanctuary. Under the brilliant schemes of lighting designer Mark O'Maley, Headlong has created a combination of movement, speech, and beautiful music, where audience members are encouraged to consider the power and the act of explanation. " - e-weekly
Orestes 2.0 | here arts center "Every single aspect of this production is very impressive from the acting and directing to the sound and lights, everything clicks. Close attention is paid to the details. I was captivated from beginning to end. The production design is simple but very effective....... Mark O'Maley's lighting design i s beautiful. He uses a lot of side- and down-lighting, creating great shadows and a dark, mysterious atmosphere. He contrasts this atmosphere with stark fluorescent light to highlight the mood of other characters and scenes.” -nytheatre.com
KING LEAR | La MAMA E.T.C. & Actor's Shakespeare project “SOMETIMES LIGHTNING does strike twice. Boston's Actors' Shakespeare Project has brought its tremendous production of "King Lear," which I saw last October, to New York, where it looks just as good -- better, even. In Boston it was performed in a college classroom that had been resourcefully converted into a makeshift performing space. In New York it's been restaged in the round at the LaMaMa Annex, a downtown black- box theater with a high ceiling and a full-fledged lighting grid, both of which have been used to maximum advantage by Patrick Swanson, David R. Gammons and Mark O'Maley, the director and designers. Here as in Boston, the scenery is nonexistent, the dress mostly modern and the incidental music (by Bill Barclay) shriekingly eerie, all of which adds up to a "Lear" whose paradoxical effect is at once intimate and overwhelming. Mr. Swanson's up-close-and-personal staging would be memorable no matter who starred in it, but Alvin Epstein's performance of the title role is nothing short of extraordinary. By turns malicious, doddering and desperate, it's the kind of Lear about which those lucky enough to see it now will be reminiscing in hushed tones decades after the fact. Make sure you're one of them -- the run ends next Sunday and seating is limited.” Terry Teachout -The Wall Street Journal “Thankfully, however, director Patrick Swanson and his design team (David R. Gammons, Mark O'Maley, Elizabeth Locke, and Bill Barclay) have worked some magic in the LaMama Annex space, transforming it into an earthy, woodchip-floored dimly lit box which sucks us in immediately with its primal elegance. The staging's chief asset is how it exploits the intimacy allowed by the space and its small cast.”
- The Playgoer.com WHEN WILL YOU COME HOME | reactionaries & wilma theater “The group Reactionaries opens the show, with red-clad dancers in the aisles and balcony, the audience invited onstage, and theater technicians wandering through the space. This collective mixes up "us and them" and here and there in When Will You Come Home. Codirector Mark O'Maley's lights, often hand-held waist high, produce exquisite halo-lit configurations and shadows.” -The Philadelphia inquirer
NEW SLANG: EVERYTHING LOOKS PERFECT FROM FAR AWAY | reactionaries & bald mermaids “Choosing your own vantage point as an audience member is fun. And the vast National Building space looked fantastic bathed in Mark O'Maley's intensely colored and angled light.” -The Philadelphia Inquirer
MEASURE FOR MEASURE | actor's shakespeare project “The production opens with Mistress Overdone's prostitutes and pimps gliding among the small tables where some audience members sit, sliding down a curved banister from the balcony, and romping across the small platform that's the only real ''stage" in the room. That sets up what's to come, with scenes played on the staircase and underneath it, in the balcony, and just about everywhere else. But it never feels forced, thanks to Walsh's expert blocking, Mark O'Maley's careful lighting, and the moody, throbbing music by Cameron Willard that underlies it all. None of it is high-priced -- but it's all priceless.” -The Boston Globe
“Sparkling text, energetic pacing, psychological subtlety - apparently, under Robert Walsh's direction, you can have it all. Cameron Willard's vivid score and Mark O'Maley's atmospheric lighting deserve credit. Leave your schoolroom notions of Shakespeare behind.” -Boston Edge
MULTI-FAMILY GARAGE SALE | reactionaries & bald mermaids “Inside the cavernous, beautiful Crane Arts Center, treat yourself to a miniature walking tour of 13 pieces by remarkable local dancers. Lighting - designed by Mark O'Maley, and used here as an element of performance rather than decoration - sheds all over the thousands-square-feet floor space, while solos and group pieces make their homes in different corners. You'll find yourself scampering to keep up, but it's all worth it as you reach each new destination, and your shadow's cast all over the back wall. Highlights among a stellar program are Katie McNamara's hyperactive jitter lit with hot pink (in the program's eponymous piece); Bethany Formica's aggressive performance in O'Maley's "In The Rye"; and Rebecca Sloan's "Agitation", a ballet populated by antsy suits including Janette Hough-Fertig, Sloan and Adam Stone, sitting on chrome desk chairs, some of which are suspended from the ceiling. But make the schlep north of Girard for the whole experience of site-specific dance which finds more than one kind of site under one roof.” - Philadelphia Citypaper
‘In Mark O'Maley and Rebecca Sloan's Philly Fringe entry ‘Multi-Family Garage Sale’, the initial concept came from O'Maley's work as a lighting designer. "What we're doing is letting lighting design be the first element," says O'Maley. "Usually the design process is a reaction to what the actor does or the playwright says. Here it's about how the light moves. It's creating a world with light and shadow and then asking the dancer to come in." By creating the lighting design first, O'Maley accentuates the designer's role as a creator. "Some directors only want a designer to be a technician," O'Maley says. "They say, 'Just light the actors so we can see them.' But in other companies, the design is like another character in the play." - Philadelphia Weekly
DON JUAN IN NIRVANA | NEW PARADISE LABORATORIES "There are many dramaturgical influences affecting the work--Moliare's play, the writings of Wilhelm Reich and paintings of Jean-Honor Fragonard and Henry Darger, Buddhist teachings, even the songs of Kurt Cobain--and the piece, though unified, lacks a dominating point of view. Still, the acting is generally superb and the fight choreography amazing, and both Mark O'Maley's lighting design and MacLaughlin's soundscape are penetrating and provocative." J. Cooper Robb-Philadelphia Weekly
“Mark O'Maley's lighting is, as ever, dynamic and original, a blend of found fixtures -- kitschy half-globe ceiling fixtures -- and theater lighting that lends visual and temporal clarity in a crowded space.” Andrew Simonet-The Dance Insider
FLOP | Pig Iron Theater Company “ Director Dan Rothenberg has orchestrated this collaboratively developed piece's compelling structure and tension so that audience interest and enjoyment never flag. He is amply aided by James Sugg's sound design that relies on flawlessly executed cues to punctuate the action, often inspiring longer or even new laughs. Mark O'Maley's lighting design adds to the evening's giddiness, particularly with the addition of projections of distant star systems.”
-Backstage
BLUE/ORANGE | Northlight theatre “Designer Mark O'Maley's dramatic solution to a sterile site deserves applause.” -The Chicago Tribune
“Scenic designer Mark O'Maley's fluorescent-lighted room is the soul of state-funded drabness.” -The Chicago Sun Times
THE FEVER | BRAT PRODUCTIONS “Almost obsessively introspective, Peter Pryor doesn’t deliver a monologue so much as a debate between the narrator and his conscience. He’s superb at suggesting the narrator’s unique ability to listen to and judge his own thoughts, which allows the play’s conclusions - many of which we’ve heard before - to seem pressing and vital. Mark O’Maley’s penetrating lighting alternately casts a harsh glare and a sinister shadow across Pryor’s pale features.” -Philadelphia weekly
THE GATE | Brian sanders' junk “Best Lighting Design” - honorable mention -Philadelphia Weekly
“Scenes I won't forget: Binford balancing like a Tantric guardian on a glowing globe; two beings (Sanders and Binford) in gauzy, light-catching bodies with high bowed spines, each like a sail or a single wing; Sanders emerging upside-down from a glowing cocoon of netting high above the audience; the dancers' giant shadows created by lighting designer Mark O'Maley, darting across the bridge high above. And more I won't give away. Sanders is at the top of his magic-making form here.”
-The Philadelphia Inquirer
“With lighting designer Mark O'Maley turning simple chains into shimmering jeweled ropes, the Junk artists move over Pedro da Silva's ingenious set with an elegant, sensual power. By the time the show concludes with the four performers flying and clinging to the set''s chain-link fence, Sanders has reaffirmed his position as the city's most exciting choreographer and performer.”
“Metal light towers form the portal to this appallingly sleazy hell, and its flames are Mark O'Maley's searchlights and red glare playing over "Britney" (Christy Lee) with her wig of yellow ribbons.”
-The Village Voice
"But the love doll's popularity is short-lived. She descends into hell (colorfully evoked by lighting designer Mark O’Maley, whose work throughout is breathtaking) and after once again being carefully preserved in plastic wrap, the cycle is complete."
-Philadelphia Weekly
"The stage was set like a pop concert at Madison Square Garden (complete with a metal studded ramp and bi-level cage), while the flashy, impressive lighting design by Mark O'Maley was at times more affecting than the choreography. There were striking primary color cues backing the cast that created eerie ambiance around the evil chosen one. At one point, amidst a heavy silence, spots searched the audience as if looking for the next big thing. I was scared." -The Dance Insider
THE WOMAN IN BLACK | STONEHAM THEATER “I return to where I started, praising the production's lights (Mark O'Maley), projections (Geoff Burns) and sound (J. Hagenbuckle) --- all of them, stunning. Stunning! I marvel at the cinematic depth that can now be brought to a stage production; how Mr. O'Maley's skies glow somewhere in between tempest and nightmare, how Mr. Burns' lightning-quick images burn into your brain and Mr. Hagenbuckles' sounds of thundering hooves echo in your ribs.” -Theater Mirror
MISSION TO MERCURY | PIG IRON THEATER COMPANY “Best Lighting Design” - Philadelphia weekly
“With brilliant staging by director Dan Rothenberg and Mark O'Maley's stunning minimalist lighting design, the ensemble employed a combination of mime and clown techniues to vividly bring to life the Queen classics.” -Philadelphia weekly
SPECIMENS | P.S. 122 "Mr. Houston-Jones clearly has a strong, sure sense of theater. He uses every inch of atmospheric bare stage space along with Mark O'Maley's quietly dramatic lighting, and the odd props studded about that function as stolidly as the lost middle class world that his dark angels once inhabited and remember here." -The New York Times
DESDEMONA: A PLAY ABOUT A HANDKERCHIEF | Boston CENTER FOR THE ARTS “The look of the production (by Mark O'Maley) is simple- a room framed off by white sheets hung out to dry- and it's nicly augmented by O'Maley's more intricate lighting design which articulates Vogel's cinematic structure nicely.” - Bay Windows