"If I keep one in six, I'm doing well."

Theatre lighting was an interest that developed gradually. Ellyard, 70, was born in Wagga Wagga to teachers who were involved in amateur dramatics. They left that town when he was six, moving to various teaching posts and raising what would eventually be six children.

When Ellyard was in fourth class, he had a life-changing accident at Point Danger, Tweed Heads. He was climbing a path up a cliff and fell off, suffering severe injuries that meant he spent the next 18 months in hospital.

"I had a smashed pelvis and an arterial clot in the left side. They had to take the leg off," he says.

He had a bone infection which meant he had to undergo several operations until it healed.

"I got behind in my schooling – I ended up getting a whole year behind," he says.

He went to school in the hospital but didn't enjoy that and ended up studying by correspondence.

For the first nine months, he says, he would see his parents and possibly some of his five siblings for about an hour a week but then their jobs took them further away and they would visit about every six weeks.

"I didn't see my parents much. I didn't see anybody," he says.

"It did have a big effect on me. I was already pretty independent – I became more so, self-contained. I'm quite OK on my own."

He says he never became heavily involved in his parents' theatrical activities when young. He dabbled a bit, though not much, being more involved in other pursuits – "I've always had an artistic streak," he says.

He sang in choirs, played recorder and clarinet, and also played softball, tennis and squash, either using a crutch or just hopping around.

It wasn't until he began studying engineering at the University of NSW – he started in mechanical then transferred to electrical – that he became involved in lighting. One of his brothers involved in Sydney University dramatics was doing a show and asked him to do the lighting.

"I hadn't done anything much – if I remember rightly I did the whole lot; it was an on-the-job learning thing. I never did any classes in lighting."

This became an interest that continued when he moved to Canberra in 1972, where his career included software design and computer programming. He worked on various shows for different groups including Hits of the Blitz and Dimboola over the years before his first with Rep, The Government Inspector, in 1986, as lighting designer. beginning his long association with the company. In the first few years he was at Rep, he was lighting designer for just about every show, he says, but as other people came on board he was able to share the workload.

Among the other things being involved in Canberra theatre has given him is a partner: he and Fay, who works on costume, props and more recently box office, have now been together for 26 years and married for 16.

Chris Ellyard was nominated for the 2011 Canberra Area Theatre Award for best lighting designer for Rep's The Pig Iron People directed by Aarne Neeme and won the CAT Award for best lighting designer for Rep's 2013 production of Under Milk Wood. directed by Duncan Ley.

The people who win awards, he says, are often the ones whose work tends towards the flashy, creating "effects not atmosphere", but that's not what he's interested in doing.

"I like dark."

For Rep's latest production, Macbeth, for example, "It's going to be stark – not much colour in it all" and for his award-winning Under Milk Wood he used smoke and darkness and spotlights to create atmosphere.

"That's what I do; that's what I like ... I like shadows, that's reality."

Ellyard particularly enjoys working with directors who have a clear idea of what they want to achieve: people such as Duncan Ley on Under Milk Wood and Aarne Neeme on Away, The Pig-Iron People and Arcadia.

Neeme says, "I like working with Chris tremendously: to see him climbing up the gantry is an inspiration, I think."

Having done theatrical lighting himself Neeme is aware of its function and importance and treats his relationship with the lighting designer as a collaboration just as much as working with the actors, bringing to life such varied stories as the time-shifting historical and scientific musings of Arcadia to the suburban tragicomedy of The Pig-Iron People.

"In many ways lighting is the biggest controller of mood," Neeme says.

And former teacher Ellyard is also patient when he needs to be, such as when imparting his knowledge to others. Elaine Noon is one longtime Rep performer who benefited from doing his lighting course and she was glad to learn how to be an operator and learn what the constant refrain to actors of "Find your light" really means.

"It's really good for actors to get into the lighting box so you can see it from a different perspective," she says. And some people, like Cynthia Jolley-Rogers, who began at Rep the same year as Ellyard, 1986, when she was in Year 12 and worked with him, went on to professional theatre careers: she studied at the Victorian College of the Arts, worked in Melbourne for 18 years in theatre, and now does lighting work in Canberra.

Another person Ellyard worked with as both an actor and as a lighting mentor was Lachlan Ruffy, now in his final year as an acting student at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. Ellyard says as an actor in The Book of Everything Ruffy was always good at finding his light on stage and Ruffy took the opportunity to learn lighting design from Ellyard on Rep's 2012 production of The Memory of Water.

Ruffy says, "Chris was a patient, approachable mentor who let me in on many lighting tricks."

Ellyard says, "I like to see actors doing that. It helps you get a feel for what you're doing. He knew what he was doing."

Ruffy says that "Chris is a perfect example of what theatre companies like Rep should be: knowledgeable, passionate and eager to share his vast amount of wisdom with younger members.

"I remember Chris once telling me that his goal was to make himself 'obsolete' by ensuring that younger generations of the Rep membership could do what he does.

"Chris - and those of us lucky enough to be taught by him – understands the need for all the elements of a show to complement the whole. Chris works in subtlety, nuance and a portion of what I think is sorcery to provide exactly what a production needs ... Forget finding your light; find Chris Ellyard."

And for four decades, Canberra theatre and Canberra Repertory Society in particular have been doing just that. While Ellyard has no intention of hogging lighting design - he's not doing it again this year unless he's needed as a "fallback" – he's still involved in productions and he will continue to be – doing lighting design, operating, mentoring, recruiting newcomers, whatever is needed.

"I've still got a few years in me yet."

Macbeth is now on at Theatre 3. canberrarep.org.au.