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Cheng Keng is an award winning lighting designer graduated from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama Scenography MFA. He is an artist/designer in performance art originally from Taiwan and based in London currently. He works with set, lighting and video to build the visual narrative and dramaturgy. Since 2015, He has designed and created works in contemporary performance, opera, experimental theatre, devising performance and online exhibition. His lighting design for Loop wins OFFIES Design 2025/26.
Theatre credits include: The Hungry Ghost(Bush); Goodbye Dandelion(Underbelly Cowgate); The Rape of Lucretia(Jacksons Lane), Desire Map(Grand Theatre Luxembourg); Welcome to Pemfort, A to B(Both Soho); Tell me straight&Aggy, Going for Gold(Both Park); Love You Long Time Already, Loop, Bungalow(All Theatre503); The Quiz(Cockpit); Poetess(Jack Dome); Testament, 555: Verlaine En Prison; Double Bill At the statue of Venus and La Voix Humaine (Both Arcola); Riders To the sea(MAST); The Light Princess(The ARC); The Lonesome Death of Eng Bunker, Tiger(Both Omnibus); Penelopiad, Frankenstein and Rain Weaver, 1984(All Cockpit); Grud(Hampstead Theatre); Grills, Project Atom Boi and So That You May Go Beyond The Sea(All CPT); 1884(Shoreditch Town Hall); The Littlest Yak, Let Your Hands Sing In The Silence(Both Marlowe); Chriskirkpatrickmas(Seven Dials Playhouse); These Words That'll Linger Like Ghosts Till The Day I Drop Down Dead(The Pleasance); The Retreat and Pennyroyal(Both Finborough); The Zone(Taoyuan art centre); Sankofa: Before the whitewash(Roundhouse); Beauty and the 7 Beasts(Brixton Jamm); Borders(Drayton Arms Theatre); Blue Island 99(International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival) and Hello World(National Taichung Theatre, Taiwan).
'Lighting by Cheng Keng is wonderfully rich and intricate, shifting fluidly from moody, claustrophobic shadows to cozy bronze tones.'
-The Stage on Loop
'I have to commend the lighting designer, Cheng Keng, who creates spaces and contrasts, pinpoints and shafts of light all through the evening.'
-Everything Theatre on Testament
'Cheng Keng’s lighting makes even the lumpy wallpaper menacing. Shadows spread like damp.'
-The Guardian on Bungalow
'Cheng Keng’s lighting is exceptionally magical.'
-A Young(ish) Perspective on Bungalow
'Cheng Keng’s lighting is used to great effect in emphasising the vastness of the void in their little world.'
-Everything Theatre on These words that’ll linger like ghosts till the day we drop down dead
'Darling instead creating weightless objects on tall black plinths giving a sense of items on exhibit and perfectly matching with the surreal storytelling, enhanced by Cheng Keng’s lighting. Keng also manages to get the switches of location and time to work extremely well in such a small venue.'
-Theatre News on These words that’ll linger like ghosts till the day we drop down dead
Projection designer Cheng Keng and AV Supervisor Adam Lenson produce evocative and sparing projections back, angled at the sides in columns that glow alive. There’s forest scenes, and increasingly one where Rachel’s script evolves into ever-more frantic palimpsests and rewrites.
-Fringe Review on The Retreat
Keng’s projections, too, make the inspiring, outdoorsy atmosphere of the retreat come to life.
-Always Time for Theatre on The Retreat
The lighting and projection design, by Ben Jacobs and Cheng Keng respectively, successfully craft minimalistic but effectively curated atmospheres for each of the play's many locations.
-London Theatre Review on The Retreat
Fortunately, Cheng Keng’s lighting fits the bill: in illuminating only the slim strip of stage it allows us to feel Alice’s isolation and estrangement from her old life.
-The Stage on Tiger
Although I see it’s purpose of conveying the passing of time there are more creative and subtle ways of doing this such as the excellent lighting design by Cheng Keng. The pulsing effect created with moody shades contributes to the intimate and sometimes claustrophobic feeling that comes with the territory of online dating.
-Theatre Full Stop on Borders
The striking, yet simple, set is by Sophie Thomas and the unusual lighting design by Cheng Keng.
-London Theatre 1 on Pennyroyal
Cheng’s intricate direction threads these seemingly separate pieces together, and it’s lithely performed by Hsueh who takes on multiple personas to stirring effect.
-Audrey Journal on Blue Island 99