After studying science and psychology at the University of Edinburgh, Francis spent five years in stage and production management including Rep Drama, Touring Opera, and productions at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Throughout the 1960s, Francis was Glyndebourne Festival Opera’s lighting director and he was subsequently responsible for the lighting design of over 300 productions staged throughout Europe. Productions of musicals such as Man of La Mancha, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Grease, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Anne of Green Gables; plays such as Sleuth, Move Over Mrs. Markham, Vieux Carre, Soldiers, Flint, The Happy Apple, Anyone for Denis?, many operas and over 60 pantomimes have all benefited from Francis Reid’s creativity and technical expertise.
From 1979 to 1981, Francis was Director of the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmonds and, from 1982 to 1987, he was Head of Theatre Design at London’s Central School of Art and Design. He has also taught Lighting Design at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and been a regular visiting lecturer at the National Theatre School of Canada since 1974. From 1992 to 1993, he was Dean of the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Art’s School of Technical Arts and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of that Academy in 1996.
Francis has lectured and presented papers quite literally across the globe from Reykjavik to Auckland, Singapore to Orlando. He is widely published and his seminal Stage Lighting Handbook is now in its fifth edition, having been translated into several languages.
(Ruth Rossington)
