French theater director of photography and lighting designer André Diot played an important role in the emergence of this profession in France. He worked extensively with Patrice Chéreau. In 1967, in Les Soldats by Jakob Lenz, their first joint production, he introduced HMI projectors, usually reserved for cinema or sporting events, to the stage. Until the mid-1980s, he used black and white, backlighting and shadows to create the chiaroscuro, twilight and poetic atmosphere on stage that would become the hallmark of the Diot-Chéreau tandem. From this time onwards, André Diot worked with other directors, including Philippe Avron, Jean Jourdheuil, Roger Planchon, Jean-Pierre Vincent, Jacques Weber, Peter Zadek, Matthias Langhoff, Zabou Breitman (Roland Topor's L'Hiver sous la table, Molière 2004 for best lighting designer), and others. He continued to work in television and, from 1980 onwards, in film (notably with Maurice Dugowson and Michel Deville). He has worked with the greatest opera directors: Jean-Louis Martinoty, Jean-Marie Simon, Roman Polanski, René Allio, Marcel Bluwal, Simone Amouyal. He has created the lighting for most of André Engel's shows, including Venise sauvée, La Nuit des chasseurs, Le Livre de Job, Salomé, Denis Levaillant's OPA Mia, Légendes de la forêt viennoise, Le Baladin du monde occidental, Don Giovanni, The Rake's Progress, La Force de l'habitude, Woyzeck, Le Réformateur, Le Roi Lear (Molière 2006 for best lighting designer), La Petite Catherine de Heilbronn, Minetti after Thomas Bernhard... In 2010, he created the lighting for Shakespeare's The Tragedy of King Richard II, directed by Jean-Baptiste Sastre at the Avignon Festival (Cour d'honneur du Palais des Papes).At the Opéra national de Paris: lighting design for numerous productions, including Rigoletto, 1988; Mzensk's Lady Macbeth, 1991; Les Contes d'Hoffmann, 1992; Salomé, 1994; Così fan tutte, 1996; Cardillac, 2005; La Petite Renarde rusée, 2008; Werther, 2010; L'Enlèvement au sérail, 2014

André DiotLighting designer