Lyle Barerre (he/him)
Owner
Lyle Barrere’s love of the performing arts began very early as he grew up backstage helping his father Louis Barrere, the sound engineer for many touring rock acts: first Julio Englesas, then Carlos Santana and Huey Lewis among many others. Summers backstage helping the audio crew load in, set up and mix the concerts gave him a deep understanding of both the technological and artistic side of the audio industry.
When home from rock and roll tours, Lyle began running tech himself for local community theatre companies, often bringing in his dad’s expertise (and equipment). While in High School, Lyle became the Resident Sound Designer at the Willows Theatre in Concord (a Member of the League of Resident Theatres/LORT the organization of professional theatres in the US).
While attending UCLA for General Physics (B.A.), he continued to advance his passion for the arts devoting most of his out of class time to working for UCLA Live (the professional public arts program on campus, now called CAP UCLA) and was the Chair of the Student Committee for the Arts (SCA) overseeing a 1.1 million dollar annual budget focusing on arts access on campus, served on the Dean’s Student Council for the School of Arts and Architecture and co-founded HOOLIGAN Theatre Company, which still exists as the largest student run theatre company on campus, providing theatre experiences to non theatre majors.
In 2004, while still in High School Lyle discovered that many of the shows he was working on had a larger budget for equipment than they did for staff payments so he began purchasing the equipment that was needed for the shows he was designing and renting that equipment to his clients. When his high school told him in 2006 they had a policy against paying students or former students directly, he set up a company then called BOW Productions. Since then the company has organized as an LLC, changed its name to Desired Effect, hired staff and grown exponentially.
In 2019 Desired Effect helped 80 clients put on over 1,000 performances or events. While 2020 was a smaller year we pivoted to online events, worked on backlogged company projects such as barcoding over 5,300 pieces of equipment, and our new website to allow customers to purchase new equipment and reserve rental equipment online, and we still had time to help over 80 clients with 600 events or performances.
As the owner and lead designer at Desired Effect, Lyle has over 17 years experience professionally designing lights, sound, video and special effects for some of the largest theatres in the Bay Area. His Sound Designs have been nominated for Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, Shellie Awards and won Theatre Bay Area and Shellie Awards. When not in the theatre Lyle enjoys working with his nonprofit trust, hiking, camping and scuba diving. He was awarded the Eagle Scout Award from BSA Troop 204.
