Candace Brightman

Candace Brightman (born 1944)

Brightman grew up in Illinois and studied set design at St John's College, Annapolis, Maryland. She began working as a lighting technician in the Anderson Theater, New York City, and was recruited by Bill Graham to operate lighting at the Fillmore East. In 1970, she operated the house lights at the Chicago Coliseum with Norol Tretiv. She has also worked for Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker and Van Morrison. Her work inspired Phish's resident lighting engineer Chris Kuroda, who regularly studied techniques in order to keep up with her standards.

Brightman continued working in related spin-off projects until 2005. She returned to direct the lighting for the Fare Thee Well concerts in 2015, where she used over 500 fixtures.