Press

Things I Know to Be True
2022
Great Barrington Public Theater

Matthew Adelson has created lighting that is evocative and creates a wonderfully moody, “other world” atmosphere that is disorienting and illusory in all the right ways. Truth lingers in the shadows of Adelson’s lighting and they remain with us long after the lights have faded and the ring of a telephone — a harbinger of tragedy — has stopped echoing in our own memory.
Berkshire Eagle

Godspell
2020
Berkshire Theatre Group

The visible onstage public health measures - partitions, masks, social distancing - “become part of the parable of being a moral person,” said Matthew E. Adelson, the show’s lighting designer.
New York Times (Feature Article)

Curve of Departure
2019
Chester Theatre Company
New England Premier

Special kudos to lighting designer Matthew Adelson. In a lovely scene, he stunningly transforms the dead-of-night, dark motel room splashed with cold, bathroom light into a morning scene soaked in the warm glow of daybreak.
Broadway World Boston

The Violin
2017
The Directors Company
New York, Off-Broadway Premier

Matthew E. Adelson's lighting also conveys the depressing feeling of New York in February, when there's no point in uncovering the windows because it will be dark by 4pm anyway.
Theater Mania

Fiorello!
2016
Berkshire Theatre Group
New York, Off-Broadway Revival

Beautifully lit by Matthew E. Adelson
Curtain Up

The Barber of Seville
2016
Theater at Monmouth
Monmouth, ME

Matthew Adelson contributes the equally lovely lighting design that has all the warmth and moonlight romance of Spain.
Broadway World

Grounded
2015
Sonorous Road Productions
Raleigh, NC

Lighting designer Matthew Adelson did an equally fantastic job in creating lighting that helped tell the pilot's story, effortlessly divining the plain square of performance space into a barracks, a bar, a suburban home, combat zone, a desert, a cubicle, and even a cockpit. The use of lighting and space is so creative that it felt like a second character communicating throughout the show.
Classical Voice of North Carolina

Our Town
2013
Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey
Madison, NJ

Using footlights and extensive side-lighting, Matthew Adelson’s design is sculptural and often exquisite. The brightening dawn as the first act begins, and the deep blue and white moonlight that concludes it, are nearly distracting in their beauty. The director and designer clearly intend to evoke the charms of nature that people sometimes fail to appreciate in their own surroundings.
New York Times

Einstein's Dreams
2011
Spooky Action Theatre
Washington, DC

Designer Matthew Adelson's rich, textured lighting quickens the production's intensity, pooling brightness and shadows on chairs, white costumes and other surfaces. The sumptuousness of Adelson's work seems particularly appropriate, given that the speed of light figures in Einstein's celebrated equation.
Washington Post

Amadeus
2006
Berkshire Theatre Festival
Stockbridge, MA

Matthew E. Adelson's complex but unostentatious lighting, with its virtuosic use of color, intensity, and shadow leads our eyes exactly where Hill wants them to go.
Boston Globe

Julius Caesar
2006
Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis
St. Louis, MO

Matthew E. Adelson, designed the dramatic lighting. He even gives us a mauve battle scene, a surreal effect. But it hints both at blood and otherworldly forces; it literally illuminates the text.
St. Louis Post Dispatch

Of Mice and Men
2004
Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey
Madison, NJ

Subtle and keen lighting design by Matthew E. Adelson accents the sorrow and the fury.
Daily Variety

The Tempest
2002
Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey
Madison, NJ

The festival's staging is a triumph for Matthew Adelson, the lighting designer.
New York Times