EncoreMichigan.com, a web-based publication focusing on Michigan’s professional theater industry, highlights the top productions, actors, artists, designers, writers and technicians in the state through its annual Wilde Awards.

This year, the spotlight shone on Kalamazoo College Theatre Arts Professor Lanny Potts, who was selected from a field of six nominees as the winner of a 2019 Wilde Award in the Best Lighting Design Category.

The honor is a result of Potts’ work in a 2018 Farmers Alley Theatre production of Bridges of Madison County in Kalamazoo. The musical, a 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Score and Orchestrations, tells a story of a love affair between a lonely housewife and a rugged photographer, examining the roads people travel, the doors they open and the bridges they cross.

Potts has won the same award twice previously through Farmers Alley Theatre, once in 2013 for his lighting design work in The Light in the Piazza, and again in 2018 for Gypsy.

To be eligible in their categories, Wilde Award nominees need at least four performances conducted through a professional theater company with paid actors between June 1, 2018, and May 31, 2019.

Potts is a professional designer and consultant whose work has included international lighting and production design; national tour designs for opera and dance; and regional designs for opera, modern dance, ballet, drama and corporate events.

Potts has presented portfolios of his work at regional conferences, worked at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and received many professional awards including a Michigan Governor’s Commendation, a design commendation from the John F. Kennedy Center (Fun Home) and Atlanta Critic’s Choice awards for his design work for the Atlanta premier of A Few Good Men.