Seeing himself as a “roadie in training for a very, very long time”—having supported his mother’s country and classic-rock cover band, Roadhouse Band, on Long Island since childhood—lighting designer William Succoso first found himself mesmerized by the visual effects created by the lighting systems at summer concerts on Jones Beach. He tried his own hand at learning the A/V elements in high school productions and church basement shows.
“I was a theater kid,” said Succoso. “I loved doing set construction and design, but I hated being covered in paint. I still loved impacting the shows visually and noticed that everybody in the booth wasn’t covered in paint. That got me into the tech side of things, and I just kept doing it.”
As an undergraduate at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Stuccoso made regular weekend visits to Providence with a close college friend whose girlfriend studied at Johnson & Wales University. Succoso transferred to SUNY-Maritime in the Bronx with intentions of entering the Coast Guard until he landed a part-time lighting operator gig at the Bowery Ballroom, a venue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The weekend commitment turned into a full-time position.
“I was working with bands that I wasn’t familiar with up until the day I worked with them,” said Succoso, about his decision to set off on his own after three years in-house supporting a single venue. “If I wanted to create something that was more in tune with the music, I had to work with the artists directly, to learn their music and to develop and design something around that.”
Following his first tour out on the road to do lighting for the Punch Brothers, Succoso supported other associated projects like Nickel Creek and I’m With Her, a trio comprising Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O’Donovan. Thirteen years later as an independent lighting designer and production manager, he has created an atmosphere for artists like The Machine, a Pink Floyd tribute band, and electronic dance music (EDM) deejays, as well as Gregory Alan Isakov.
“My whole approach is, especially with somebody like Gregory, who has a very devout fan base that has often seen the show presented many, many times before, is, how do you show them something different?” said Succoso. “How do you present the music in a way that’s not only unique but also gives the artist a sense of continuity. How do we find a sort of ‘home’ here?”