is a San Francisco Bay Area based lighting designer, educator, scenographer, technologist, and creator who has been bringing his boundless curiosity, chimerical aesthetic, and Sisyphean perseverance to performance design and education since 2005. Ray graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Arts with an emphasis in lighting design from San Francisco State University in the Fall of 2017. He also is an active company member with Mugwumpin and Shotgun Players.
As a lighting designer, Ray has worked with Word For Word, Z Space, piecebypiece productions, ACT, The Magic Theatre, Mugwumpin, Shotgun Players, Center Rep, New Conservatory Theatre Company, Crowded Fire, Santa Cruz Shakespeare Company, Debutants and Vagabonds, David Herrera’s Performance Company, and Red Rooster. He has created the original lighting designs for the world premieres of A Tale of Autumn by Christopher Chen, Grandeur By Han Ong, Pen Man Ship by Christina Anderson, Bad Jews by Joshua Harmon, The Virgin with 10k Arrows by Jason Tremblay, Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World by Yussef El Guindi, and Blockbuster Season and In Event of Moon Disaster by Mugwumpin.
Ray is currently a lecturer at San Francisco State University. As such Ray oversaw the restructuring and modernization of the university’s Lightboard Programing class, which he now teaches. He currently serves on SFSU’s safety committee, and in the past he also served on the hiring committee for the staff props position. Additionally he, developed and taught classes in theatrical lighting design for Redwood High School as a guest artist. Ray has worked with the world-renowned SF MOMA and event lighting industry leaders Got Light to create and administer customized training for their employees.
Ray has pursued many avenues of creative expression. learning new skills and making an ever-expanding menagerie of artifacts. Some of his artifacts include electrified props, hand embroidery, 3D printed objects, woodworking, and metal casting using a lost pla technique.