What a great show biz name, right? Well, Natalie Robin’s got more going for her than a cool moniker. Try a degree from Columbia. An MFA from NYU where she’s now an adjunct faculty member. The 2008 Young Designer to Watch award from Live Design Magazine. Oh, and did we mention she writes for that pub, too? She’s also a founding member of Polybe + Seats, an experimental theater company in Brooklyn, and an associate artist of NYC’s critically acclaimed Target Margin Theater. Other talents include photography, production management, set design, costumes and even a little French and German. Hmmm, can you say "overachiever" in French?

WHY HER: She’s a master of light. Natalie knows how to create transcendent moments on stage using just the right effect. "I’m a big believer in giving a show what it needs," says Natalie. "Often the right thing is the most simple, most old-fashioned, most crafty." You gotta love that. And the fact that she loves Apollo gel.

HER PLAYGROUND: The theater, opera, dance, music and performance art. Natalie also takes killer photographs (her work is exhibited in NYC), teaches Vectorworks for Lighting Designers at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and is a contributing writer for Live Design Magazine. Okay, so when does she sleep?

RECENT SHOWS:
Lighting Design, Selected

• Second Language, Target Margin Theater/The Chocolate Factory 2011
• Michael & Edie, Access Theater 2010
• Di Tsvey Brider (The Two Brothers), National Yiddish Theater/Nagelberg Theatre 2010
• The Magic Flute: A Sound Op-Era, Target Margin Theater/The Brick Theatre 2010
  
  
• Fyvush Finkel Live!, National Yiddish Theater/Nagelberg Theatre 2010
  
• Boeing Boeing, Bristol Valley Theatre 2010
  
• A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things, Polybe + Seats/Waterfront Barge, Brooklyn 2010
• Remembering Mr. Maugham, Clurman Theatre 2010
• Hamlet (scenery and lighting), Paradise Factory 2010
  
  
• Twelfth Night, Classic Stage Company 2010
• Granada, Polybe + Seats/Access Gallery 2009
• 2 Little Tragedies of Pushkin, Little Opera Theater of NY/Hudson Guild Theater 2009
• Scandalous People, FringeNYC/Minetta Lane Theater 2009
• Red Herring, Bristol Valley Theatre 2009
• Pullman Car Hiawatha, Target Margin Theater/Chocolate Factory 2009
• The Threepenny Opera, Theater at Riverside Church 2009
• The Winter’s Tale, Atlas Room, Tisch/NYU 2008
• Are You a Bird or a Dodo? Target Margin Theater/Here Arts Center 2007
• The Argument, Target Margin Theater/The Kitchen & Theater 3 2007
• Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, Shubert Theater, Tisch/NYU 2006
  
  
• A Small Hole, Fringe NYC/Dance New Amsterdam 2006
• Training Wisteria, Summer Play Festival/Clurman Theatre 2006
  
• The Charlotte Salomon Project, Polybe + Seats/Brooklyn Fireproof 2005-6

Assistant Lighting Design, Selected

• A Walk Across America For Mother Earth, Talking Band/Ellen Stewart Theater, La Mama 2011
• The Mad 7 (associate), Fringe NYC/East 4th Street Theater 2010
• Whoa Nellie!/Mirror Mirror, Chase Brock Experience/Connelly Theatre 2010
• That Face, Manhattan Theatre Club 2010
• The Really Big Once, Target Margin Theater/Ontological Theater 2010
• Antony & Cleopatra, Curtis Opera Theatre/Perelman Theater 2010

LOVES: History, Abraham Lincoln, science fiction, Twitter, Steampunk novels (we had to look that one up), Lucy Wainright Roche, Mozart (she’s designing his Mitridate opera this season), and a little black and white cat named Sloosha. Natalie’s also a diehard reader, TV watcher, and museumgoer. Says Nat: "I firmly believe we are always the people we will become. The things we’re passionate about from childhood remain the things we’re passionate about as adults. I still have to go see the Temple of Dendur first every time I walk into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, just like I’ve been doing since I was 4."

YELLOW SNOW: Although the name elicits giggles, that’s not the reason Natalie chose Yellow Snow (AP6150) as her favorite Apollo gel color. "It has a really nice acidic quality." Exactly. "Also, Apollo says it's 'good for moon gobos and Frank Zappa songs.'"

FAVORITE LD TRICKS: "Hanging light bulbs glowing at a low level. Getting brighter when you expect it to get darker. Doing the unpredictable or unexpected." Now, don't everybody do the light bulb thing at the same time.

BIGGEST FEAR: "Working as a freelance artist can be really financially precarious. Figuring out how to make the money work is always scary and hard."

BIGGEST THRILL: "I love being part of a thing that is different every time, that is truly ephemeral, that depends on the presence of someone watching. I love the feeling of connection that comes from making something TOGETHER. I also love the unpredictability and the fact that every day is different."

OUTSIDE THE BIG APPLE: For young LDs who aren’t lucky enough to live and work in NYC like Natalie, she has some good advice. "Do the work you’re doing. If you can make work that you love where you are, stay there. If the work you love is somewhere else, go to it."

I BELIEVE: "I believe that everything has a solution. That 'no' is not an acceptable answer. I don't believe that anything is impossible." Strong words from a strong LD.

BORN BOSSY: When we asked Natalie how she got interested in lighting design, here’s what she said. "I came to performance through dance, but I started doing theater in middle school. I was always bossy so directing seemed like an obvious choice, but I started doing a lot of lighting design in college (let's be honest, that's where the cool kids were) and it became increasingly clear that lighting made me happier and was more expressive for me than directing."

LATEST KICK: "I’ve been doing a lot of touring in Europe, especially France. And I really enjoy some of their equipment, especially the PC." All aboard for Paris!

SEEING WHAT’S THERE: "I’m always trying to make my work better," says Natalie, "which means looking at the stage in front of me and really seeing it; seeing what is there, not what the idea is; giving it what it needs, not what it theoretically 'should' need." Whoa. No wonder she’s so good at this.

OTHER APOLLO FAVES: Gobos, gobo rotators and scrollers.

WHAT’S ON HER iPOD: "Everything," says Natalie. "I worked at Joe’s Pub (at the Public Theater) designing live music shows for 3 years, so a lot of my interest in music comes from bands and performers I worked with then." Specifically, she lists her current musical muses as Lady Gaga, Lucy Wainright Roche, Monsters of Folk, Mozart’s Mitridate, Interpol, and "always, always The Dresden Dolls."

DREAM SHOWS TO DESIGN: Wagner’s Ring Cycle (told you she’s an overachiever), Tommy, and Richard II.

BEST ADVICE EVER: Natalie has three pieces of advice from lighting designer Mary Louise "ML" Geiger that she repeats to herself often:

• It always looks bad on the first day.
• Always have a valid passport.
• Always save your favorite outfit for the last day you are out of town.

But most importantly: "Be here now," says Natalie. "Do the show you’re doing, not the next one." And her favorite newfound piece of advice for tech people is, "It’s called a technical rehearsal because it’s a time for us to rehearse!"

NON-TRADITIONAL LIGHTING: One of the things we love most about Natalie is her originality. She’s not afraid to break rules and do the unexpected, including working with "non-traditional" lighting sources. "Light is light, after all," explains Natalie, who works regularly with an experimental theater company that tends not to perform in traditional theatrical spaces. "We have presented shows in kitchenware stores, art galleries and, most recently, on a barge in Red Hook, Brooklyn. So we use all sorts of light sources, including simple clip lights, halogen worklights, camping lanterns, LED headlamps – whatever works right for the project."

NAT’S PHILOSOPHY: "Design is dramaturgy." Can we get that on a t-shirt?

EDUCATION: MFA/Lighting Design, New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Department of Design for Stage & Film, 2008; BA/Drama and Theater Arts, English, Creative Writing, Columbia University, NY, 2002.

OTHER IMPRESSIVE GIGS: Adjunct Faculty, NYU, Tisch School of the Arts, 2008-present; Contributing Writer, Live Design Magazine; Guest Designer, Muhlenberg College and Bard College, 2008 and 2009; Designer, Lincoln Center Directors' Lab, 2009-2010; Lighting Design Assistant, Guggenheim Museum, 2007-2009.

AWARDS & AFFILIATIONS: Young Designer to Watch, Live Design Magazine, 2008; Associate Artist, Target Margin Theater, Brooklyn, NY; Founding Company Member, Polybe + Seats, Brooklyn, NY.

WINNER’S REACTION: "I was obviously thrilled, surprised and completely flattered."