My name is Thomas Gardner, and I am a professional, award-winning lighting designer and Technical Director dedicated to producing bold art in innovative ways with surprising populations. For nearly the past decade, I have been designing professionally across the country for a wide range of theaters from LORT theatres to collegiate institutions, and for audiences from 100 to 2,000. My craft is significantly informed by my educational background and experience designing for well over fifty productions of various sizes, genres, and budgets. My technical practice has been reinforced by my experience serving as the Master Electrician for the F. Scott Black Theatre at the Community College of Baltimore County. My leadership ability has been developed by serving as the founding Technical Director for the Tomlinson Theatre, a newly constructed $5 million theatre on campus at the Jemicy School. The Jemicy School is a leading private school serving students with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences. At Jemicy, I developed and led a collegiate preparatory design and production curriculum while managing a flexible theatre space modernizing and improving inventory and equipment, and organizing and implementing safety inspections and protocols, while simultaneously producing and/or designing over six productions a year. For context, our high-caliber productions were invited to perform on the Main Stage at the International Thespian Festival, the only high school in Maryland to be granted that honor in the last twenty-three years and the only Maryland high school granted this opportunity twice – ever. I have designed over fifty shows since 2016, at theaters which include Phoenix Festival Theater, Cockpit in Court, Single Carrot, Annapolis Summer Garden Theater, Fells Point Corner Theater, Silhouette Stages, Stevenson University, Towson University, and Iron Crow Theater, where he is currently the resident lighting designer. I obsessively listen to NPR and Radiolab and am a big fan of Vlogbrothers.
Lighting Director - Towson University
Assistant Technical Director - Towson University
Resident Artist - Iron Crow Theatre
Resident Artist - Cockpit in Court
B.S. - Towson University in Design and Production
A.A. - The Community College of Baltimore County in Acting
tgardner@towson.edu