Meet Grey Nicholson | Lighting Designer & Programmer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Grey Nicholson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Grey, how do you think about risk?
I think about risk as going hand in hand with growth and opportunity. A project without risk is rarely going to be a project that allows you to grow and see what skills you still need to develop. Incredible opportunities are something that rarely appear in front of you without allowing some healthy risk into your decision making.

In the past few years, I can think of very few shifts in the style or scale of work I’m doing that didn’t terrify me in one way or another. Whether it’s not having the right skillset, lacking knowledge, lacking the ability to self-correct problems, not understanding how to talk to the people you’re working with. I’ve had to wrestle with all these things as I’ve made jumps and new risks on my career. I knew I was taking a huge risk for myself saying yes to my first job in broadcast television at the Country Music Awards. At the time, I knew very little about the structure of how a show like this worked. I’d only briefly met the team I’d be working alongside for a 60+ hour week, and I was still feeling self-conscious about how my programming skillset would fit into the needs of the team at the end of the day. There were plenty of days leading up to flying to Nashville where those terrified and anxious feelings became a string of doubt about why they had picked me and why I had agreed to such a big task. I was anxious about the process, but I knew at my core that I would be able to ask the necessary questions, figure out my setbacks, and embrace this risk by giving it everything I had available to me.

What I originally thought of as failures and oversights became the gifts of taking a risk on myself. Those gifts continue to give me the drive to seek out healthy risk now as I continue making a name for myself in the industry. And I hope I can keep finding those opportunities for myself.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I think the piece setting me apart right now is my history in the entertainment world and my outlook on how I want to interact with other people in this industry. I grew up performing, doing musicals all the way through high school, sometimes going from rehearsal of one musical to another and felt incredibly comfortable hopping in and out of these high-stress performances. At one point, I stayed so busy with it I thought my career would turn into performance and acting. Lighting ultimately became a new extension of those performances for me, so much so that I found myself doing both the lighting design and acting as Captain Von Trapp in my senior year production of The Sound of Music. I’ve always been doing some version of performance in music, theater, production, lighting, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I also think this long time spent in performance gave me perspective on what others are doing to support larger shows and what kind of attitude you need to be the person folks want to keep bringing back to the table. I love being curious about other people and their stories. I want to know my team better by the end of a project. I want to know how best to support people’s needs and stressors. To me, the version of myself I want to bring onto any project is someone that can meet another person where they’re at and adapt to what the team needs most.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If I knew I was hosting for a week here in LA, it would be full of themed entertainment, delicious drinks and shows across town. We’d start our week off getting a seasonal matcha or latte from Three Sisters Coffee & Tea, and then spend days bouncing between Six Flags Magic Mountain for a thrill, Disneyland for a classic and Universal Studio Hollywood for something that feels uniquely local to the people living and working in Los Angeles. We’d have to make a trip to both the High Low bar in Glendale and The Raymond 1886 in Pasadena to make sure we get a great craft cocktail. If it’s the second Sunday of the month, one of my favorite improv comedy groups, Yeti Or Not, does an incredible show at the Elysian Theater. If the LA Phil is playing at the Bowl, I’d also say we should book a box seat, put together a picnic basket and enjoy some live music. There is always something great to see, whether it’s at the Hollywood Bowl, the Greek Theater, the Orpheum, the Wiltern, or the Fonda.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I would not be where I am in the industry without people taking risks on me and offering me mentorship. There are four pillars in my life that keep me going. Josh Selander offered me the highest level of encouragement while I was sitting in college realizing that the career on Broadway many of my other peers had for their lives was not the one for me. So much of my confidence in moving from North Carolina to Los Angeles came from him telling me I’d fit in on the west coast. When I started exploring what life could look like on the west coast, Tiffany Keys gifted me her time and expertise figuring out who I should talk to and how I could continue growing my skillset as a programmer. Her advocating for me and my personality is largely the reason I started conversations with so many of the folks I work with now. On top of that, I always know I can call her when I’m in a panic or need an expert opinion and she will be there for me, even if I could’ve solved the problem on my own. Eric Marchwinski ultimately took a chance on bringing me into the sphere of Earlybird Visual here in Burbank and continues to be a huge source of mentorship and opportunity for me. He’s one of the busiest humans I know and yet, he will always take time to reply and help me out.

I also want to shoutout my partner, Kat, for being the reason I am able to do so many of these projects. They are my rock when I’m taking a risk, my support for when the hours run late, and my home for all the time in between.

Website: https://www.greyhoundent.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grey_hound_entertainment/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grey-nicholson/

Image Credits
Most of these photos are direct show photos paid by the production or taken by my own camera

Dancing with the Stars Live photo with Stephen Nedoroscik – PC: Sarah Kohrt
Young Thug Summer Smash photo – PC: Rob Grabowski
Third Eye Blind Summer Gods photo – PC: Nolen Ryan
Cleveland Cavaliers Arena photo – PC: Katie Zaremba