BATH — The year was 1974 and people flocked to a theater in the small town of Bath. The production was “Blackbeard: Knight of the Black Flag,” written by local playwright Stuart Aronson; its cast drawn from across eastern North Carolina.

One of those actors was not an actor at all, and only applied to do lighting for the show. But Aronson needed more bodies on stage, and acting in seasons one and three of the story of Blackbeard’s life and adventures was the beginning of Harley Whitehurst’s 34-year career in entertainment.

“I credit Blackbeard with teaching me stage right from stage left,” Whitehurst said.

Whitehurst made a visit to Washington over Fourth of July, a place he hasn’t lived since he was a young man. In the years since, he’s spent a lot of time on the road as lighting director with Broadway productions and rock ‘n’ roll concerts. At home in Florida, he’s in charge of lighting for the performing arts centers in Tampa and Clearwater. He’s lit stages for everyone from Red Skelton to Carrot Top; from Sammy Davis Jr. to Motley Crue, and just came off a seven-year tour with the Broadway show “The Lion King.”

“I have seen ‘The Lion King’ 1,700 times. I run the spotlight, so I’m one of the only people who literally has to watch the show every single night. … You can only hear ‘Hakuna Matata’ so many times,” Whitehurst laughed.

He got his start in the business after he moved from Washington to Tampa and fell in with the stagehands’ union simply because he did know stage left from stage right. His first Broadway show tour was with “Chess” in 1989; he’s done 12 since. When production for the Oscar-winning movie “Cocoon” came to Florida in the mid-1980s, he landed a job as a scenic painter, painting the “cocoons” and lead character Steve Guttenberg’s boat look as sea-weathered as possible.

“Steve Guttenberg’s boat was actually a beautiful boat. I had to junk it up. The best compliment I ever got on my work was one day, standing in the (boat) yard, looking at the design in one hand and up at the boat, and this guy comes up next to me and said, ‘Wow, you’ve got your work cut out of for you,’” Whitehurst said. “It’s fun when you get paid to make things look bad.”

Much of the work is in the production of every show: lighting technicians, carpenters, electricians, stage designers putting the pieces of an overall design together. One of the most memorable was the Rolling Stones ‘Steel Wheels’ tour in 1990.

“That tour was 63 tractor trailers and took three days to set up,” he said. “Rock ‘n’ roll is a young man’s game because they move those shows every night, whereas a Broadway show will sit there for at least a week. … You can make more money doing rock ‘n’ roll, but you’re working a lot harder.”

Tours are pieced together during a week- to month-long production period before acts head out on the road. Over the years, Whitehurst has overseen the lighting for concerts by Yes, Ricky Lee Jones and Jimmy Buffett.

“We build the show, and they would come in and rehearse — get them ready to tour and then send them on their way,” he said.

In all, Whitehurst has toured across the U.S. on 12 separate occasions, to Japan and Mexico, as well. At 34 years in, he has only one more to go, and with the decades spent on the road killing time in hotel rooms, he’s amassed the makings of a future book about his many adventures on the road — thanks to a little, long ago summer production called “Blackbeard.”