Enloe Theater is known for its talent on and off stage. Lighting designer and general light enthusiast, Remus Johnson, helps make this happen. Whether designing for the Enloe main stage productions or doing lights outside of school, Remus always puts his heart into his work. You may have recognized his designs in the thematic projections in “Les Miserables,” or the moody looks in “Radium Girls.”
At a young age, Remus began participating in various theater camps and helped with props and paint work in middle school. But, it wasn’t until his freshman year that he got sucked into theater and discovered his passion for lights with “110 Stories” and “Pippin.” “[I was] helping out with ‘110 Stories,’ and then I did more for ‘Pippin,’” Remus recounts, “but it was really fun to just do that.” He continued to pursue lights after his freshman year, eventually becoming the associate lighting designer and projection designer for “Les Misérables” in his junior year, and lighting designer for the fall play and spring musical this year. As lighting designer, Remus got to plan exactly where he wanted lights to go, and how to create each specific mood. As projection designer, he worked with the director to decide which projections out of a purchased pack they wanted to use for the show. “With ‘Les Mis,’ we used a lot of stuff that was just background, atmospheric,” Remus says, “you just see the night sky or things like that.” Enloe’s “Les Misérables” was nominated for DPAC’s Rising Star Awards in almost every category, including lighting design, and won both Best Actor and Best Musical. In reference to his time working on “Les Miserables,” Remus says, “I think it’s still one of the best shows, if not the best show I’ve ever done.”
Beyond Enloe, Remus also does tech theater for organizations such as Theater Raleigh and North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theater (NRACT). At NRACT, Remus began with teen camps before eventually moving on to designing for shows such as “Big Fish” and “Southern Baptist Sissies.” “[When] I did ‘Southern Baptist Sissies’ last June, that was officially the first show I designed out of high school,” Remus says. “[It] was the most meaningful show I was able to design.” Additionally, he was the assistant designer and operated the lighting console for Theater Raleigh’s production of “Bull Durham,” naming it as one of his favorite shows he’s done outside of Enloe. Despite not being the lighting designer for the show, he felt as though he learned more from that one month experience than he had over the previous few months due to working so closely with the designer.
Enloe Theater tends to foster deep connections between all actors and technicians involved, and Remus is no exception. “You make a lot of friends,” he says. “I think my closest friends now are all in theater.” One such friend, stage manager Gibson Wood, recounts one of her favorite memories with Remus. “We were doing [a] spaghetti tower building challenge with our tech [class], but we just goofed off and made spaghetti hats. It was the first time in a while that we had been able to relax after ‘Radium Girls,’” Gibson says. “I know he’s going to do amazing things.”
Remus is going to attend the University of North Carolina School of Arts (UNCSA) and major in lighting design. Out of all the schools, Remus decided on UNCSA for its highly focused program and the way that students get to immediately work on the shows, instead of general education first. “I’m hoping it’ll be branching off of what we already do here,” he says, “I think I’ll be able to learn a lot and just perfect what I want to do.” He hopes to one day make it onto Broadway, but until then, he just wants to make a living out of theater. “I want to be able to do it full time and have that be my only career thing,” he says.
After years of lighting Enloe’s stage, it’s finally time for Remus to step into his own spotlight outside of high school. We at The Eagle’s Eye wish him luck along the way!
