Abi Farnsworth is a New York City based lighting designer for musical theatre, opera, dance, plays, and stories incorporating music.
Abi creates lighting designs and collaborates on live events staged in cities from NYC to Orlando to the Detroit and Milwaukee Metro areas.
Abi Farnsworth designs lighting and leads production teams in wide-ranging venues from black box and regional performing arts centers to outdoor stadium and commercial theme park.
Clients and employers have included The Orlando Ballet, Cedar Point, Studio RRD, Steps on Broadway, ShowFab, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and the University of Michigan Ann Arbor.
About Abi Farnsworth
I create, lead, and coordinate narrative lighting design for musicals, opera, dance, plays, and live entertainment incorporating music.
My experience as a sound designer, stage manager, video editor, head electrician, prop/practicals designer, sound engineer, and lighting programmer inform my lighting designs in timing, transition, and story telling techniques.
My designs have been seen at Tipping Point Theatre, Timber Lake Playhouse, Interlochen’s Phoenix Theatre, Detroit’s Andy Arts Center, Arthur Miller Theatre, Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, the Power Center for the Performing Arts, the Jack Crystal Theatre, The Walker Theatre, and the CM Performing Arts Center.
I’ve had award-winning lighting design experiences with Gregory Keller, Ryan Dobrin, and Richard R. Henry. I’ve also had award-nominated production and design runs with Tommy Ranieri.
Additionally, I designed lighting with directors Devanand Janki, Cameron King, and Jasmine Rivera to favorable design and production reviews.
Dance lighting I designed with J’Sun Howard and Shannon Gillen appeared on the cover and inside the Michigan Muse respectively. Charli Brissey, Kyunghwa Han, and Imani Ma’at Taylor join them as choreographers I designed lighting with in helping to create their artistic productions.
My Assistant Lighting Design contribution on the Orlando Ballet lighting design team under Joseph Walls for the 50th Anniversary $3.6 million redesign of The Nutcracker was mentioned in Light & Sound International (LSi) online, Live Design online, and in the award-winning documentary “Artistry and Innovation: Reimagining the Nutcracker.”
I was excited to continue as Assistant Lighting Designer to Orlando Ballet’s remounting of their 50th Anniversary redesign of the Nutcracker, and to work with Studio RRD for Fashion Week with Prabal Gurung at St. Bartholomew’s Church while attending graduate school at NYU/Tisch in Lighting Design for Stage and Film.
Currently, I am honored to be chosen as Chautauqua Theatre Company’s Summer 2026 Theatrical Lighting Design Fellow.
