Design Quotes

“Itai Erdal lights the actors like Rembrandt van Rijn, all chiaroscuro, candle like glow fading into charcoal darkness.”

Colin Thomas, The Georgia Straight, 3.02.2005 (Crime and Punishment, Neworld)

“Lighting designer Itai Erdal does more with light and fog than most designers do with an entire set; indeed, his evocative and magical lighting will undoubtedly be one of the aspects of this production that lives on in the audience's memories.”

John Threlfall, Monday Magazine, 4.10.2008 (Three Sisters, Theatre SKAM)

“Itai Erdal’s lighting design transforms the set into an expression of visual poetry.”

Rachel Scott, Plank Magazine, 25.11.2009 (After the Quake, Rumble)

“In many ways, the design, especially Itai Erdal’s lighting, is the star of this telling. Often, the warmly lit skin tones and beautiful fabrics, with darkness surrounding them, evoke the paintings of Rembrandt. At other times, bodies, molded by light, acquire the exquisite weight of sculptures.”

Colin Thomas, The Georgia Straight, 23.01.2012 (The Idiot, Neworld)

The Globe and Mail asked Antoni Cimolino, Artistic Director, Stratford Festival:

Who is the most theatrical Canadian?

Answer: “My nominee is the award-winning lighting designer Itai Erdal. Based in Vancouver, the Israeli-born Erdal has designed more than 200 shows for theatre and dance companies around the world. His design work is very bold and theatrical, and he lives his life with a fantastic mixture of seriousness and playfulness. But theatre is a communal art form, and the overriding reason I choose him is that I don’t know anyone who is a better connecter, who has reached out more across the country and internationally, and who is so immediately engaging. His award-winning one-man show, How to Disappear Completely, about both the craft of lighting design and assisted suicide, involving the story of his mother, beautifully integrates the personal and the professional. It’s funny and poignant at the same time.”

Globe and Mail, 2014 Canada Day Issue

“Lighting designer Itai Erdal takes advantage of the pool setting to create some wonderful effects. He has given us an evening to gasp at and remember.”

Ottawa Citizen, 6.21.2007 (The One That Got Away, Electric Company)

“Lighting designer Itai Erdal does a fantastic job of enlivening Ana Cappelluto’s simple white set. With dynamic cues—Erdal colours the area with twilight blues and creates stark little prisons with shafts of light.” 

Colin Thomas, Georgia Straight, 31.1.2008 (My Name Is Rachel Corrie, Neworld)  

“Itai Erdal's impressive lighting moves from murky grey, to blinding white, to blood red as the three solos progress through the bruising choreography.” 

Paula Citron, Globe and Mail, 09.11.2009 (La Vision Impure, Noam Gagnon)

“The lighting by Itai Erdal is by turns fractured and brilliant – literally – illuminating Rome’s growing corruption and Lavinia’s mutilation – the audience cannot ignore it if they tried.”

RL Godfrey, Stratford Beacon Herald, 22.08.2011 (Titus Andronicus, Stratford Festivasl) 

“Itai Erdal’s lighting is a mood-setter and a metaphor, creating giant shadows – how big we can become, how dark – and transforming the theatre into these many worlds: a circus tent; a stark, isolated room; that intoxicating bubble we enter when we fall in love.” 

Marsha Lederman, Globe and Mail, 29.30.2020 (Buffoon, Arts Club Theatre)

“Itai Erdal's lighting design puts us inside and outside of the character's imploding mind. Frequent use of overhead spots keeps us tightly focused on the performer, and with judicious use of colour, Erdal shifts the mood.

Jo Ledingham, Vancouver Courier, 11.10.2005 (Broiler, Theatre Replacement)

“Itai Erdal's white set of an elegant stairway, panels, screens and curtains is wonderfully transformed by the projections of art at key moments. Erdal is also responsible for the subtle lighting that enhances the spare Eastern aesthetic.”

Paula Citron, Globe and Mail, 4.24.07 (36 Views, Actors Repertory Company)

Writing / Performing Quotes

“Itai’s stories are personal, intimate, open and brave; they have a sensitive tone and turn to the very essence of human condition, namely history, family, cultural background, social and political constraints.”

Art Vanguard, 23.05.2015

“Erdal balances humor, beauty, and tragedy with the expertise of a tightrope walker.”

Aaron Scott, Slant Magazine 20.09.2013

“Erdal, who never trained as an actor, is absolutely mesmerizing”

Jim Burke, Montreal Gazette 05.05.2017

“Itai Erdal is gentle, sensitive and engaging”

Keith McKenna, British Theatre Guide 12.08.2023

“Erdal radiates a sober, reflective exile energy”

Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman 22.08.2023

“Gripping... theatre doesn't get more raw than this”

Fringe Guru, 22.08.2014

“Bristles with theatrical ingenuity and moral truth”

Mark Brown, The Sunday National, 13.08.2023

“A winning combination of warmth and wit”

Fergus Morgan, The Stage, 21.08.2023

“How To Disappear Completely redefines what an actor is and what theatre is… The piece is funny, touching, honest, intimate, and most of all, brave.”

Beat Rice, The Charlebois Post 9.05.2012 

“How To Disappear Completely is a heart-breaking, heart-warming sharing of one man’s efforts to understand, to live a life well lived and to do the right thing. An elegant reminder that even the subtlest light can dispel the darkness and fashion a life affirming and memorable experience.”

examiner.com 17.09.2014

“It may sound like a grim, three-hankie experience, but along with the tears (and they do come, eventually), there is humour, and life. Emotional manipulation and melodrama are mercifully absent. What could have been a dark show is driven in fact by light. The professional insights of Erdal, who at times operates the lighting from the stage, are used to great effect to illuminate his story, becoming a metaphor for his experiences and for life’s big questions. He uses the medium he knows so intimately to transcend the private, and present theatre with universal resonance.” 

Marsha Lederman, Globe and Mail 18.02.2011

"For years Vancouver theatregoers have sung the praises of local lighting designer Itai Erdal, now it’s time to change our tune and marvel instead at this man’s bravery"

 Peter Birnie, Vancouver Sun, 15.02.2011

“As a performer, Erdal appears completely at ease and totally engaging on stage... This is intimate theatre that's astonishingly brave and completely entertaining. How To Disappear Completely inspires us to live like a Parcan, shining brightly then glowing warmly as we fade to black.”

Jo Ledingham, Vancouver Courier 25.02.2011