Live Design Magazine April 2016 by Live Design Magazine By Penton Media Inc.

ENVISION I BUILD I TECH I GO APRIL 2016

AV y g o l o n h c e T DUC TIO U E A N D PR O N E V T S E W SoC AL’ S NE

V N FACILIT Y, A

SUPERCINEMA PARTYING • THE SOUND OF SAN FRANCISCO OPERA TRIO: CONCERTDANCE LIGHTING • TOBIN WINNER MICHAEL YEARGAN • YOUNG MASTER SUTTIRAT LARLARB WHAT’S TRENDING IN LEDs • THE DESIGNS OF MISHA KACHMAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS ///

A PRIL 2016 /

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Q+A: SUTTIRAT ANNE LARLARB

A NEW BOOK FOR ACOUSTICS

2016 TDF/IRENE SHARAFF YOUNG MASTER AWARD WINNER /// B Y E L L E N L A M P E R T- G R E A U X

ACOUSTICS OF MULTI-USE PERFORMING ARTS CENTERS: TUNING THE HALL, PART TWO /// B Y M A R K H O L D E N

BUILD ///

TECH ///

WHAT’S TRENDING: LEDs

/// B Y E L L E N L A M P E R T- G R E A U X

LOADOUT ///

MISHA KACHMAN PAINTING OUTSIDE THE LINES /// B Y D A V I N A P O L E O N

EXCELLENCE AWARDS VOTING IS OPEN

/// B Y M A R I A N S A N D B E R G

COVER STORY ///

The Good Life

Designer Michael Yeargan Receives Robert L.B. Tobin Award For Sustained Excellence /// B Y M E G H A N P E R K I N S

Space Revolution Southern Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Newest Event, Meeting,and Production Facility: AV /// B Y M A R I A N S A N D B E R G

FEATURES ///

Party City Supercinema Film-Themed Parties At The McKittrick Hotel /// B Y N A T A L I E R O B I N

Pas De Trois

Room To Grow

Two Dancers And A Piano As Lit By Clifton Taylor

San Francisco Opera Gets New, High-Tech Venue

/// BY EL L EN L A MP ER T- GRE A U X

/// B Y B R A D H A T H A W A Y

Q+A SU T TIR AT A NNE L A RL A RB

Q+A SUTTIRAT ANNE LARLARB 2016 TDF/Irene Sharaff Young Master Award Winner /// E L L E N L A M P E R T- G R E A U X

LAURENCE GRIFFITHS, GETTY IMAGES

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Q+A SU T TIR AT A NNE L A RL A RB

“I ALWAYS BEGIN WITH THE SCRIPT, READING IT AND BREAKING IT DOWN INTO ITS COMPONENT PARTS,” SAYS LARLARB.

CAROL ROSEGG

ostume designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb, currently represented on Broadway with Waitress and Finding Neverland, is the winner of this year’s prestigious TDF/Irene Sharaff Young Master Award, which will be presented on Friday, May 20 at the Edison Ballroom in NYC. An associate professor of costume design at Carnegie Mellon University, Larlarb’s work ranges from theatre to film to television. Her costume and production designs for the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games won an Emmy Award, and her costume designs for the Oscar-winning film, Slumdog Millionaire, earned her a Costume Designers Guild Award in 2008. Live Design chats with this young master about her life in the costume shop and beyond.

Finding Neverland

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Q+A SU T TIR AT A NNE L A RL A RB

LAURENCE GRIFFITHS, GETTY IMAGES

LIVE DESIGN: How did you get into the design field? SUTTIRAT LARLARB: I knew from a very young age I wanted to be in a creative field, and I had a penchant for drawing. It wasn’t until college that I discovered the possibilities of theatre design. I took my first formal class in costume design and designed student productions, then honed my training in graduate school at Yale, and that put me on the path to everything that followed. LD: How do you approach a new project, from a design point of view, and what is your process from A to Z? SL: It always begins with the script. Read the script once to get it in my head. Read the script a second time for technical reasons: breaking it down into its component parts, making lists and charts, researching topics and questions for the director, jotting down initial thoughts and impressions of characters and their worlds. Read the script again to absorb on a cellular level. Breakdowns are incredibly important to me. Once I’ve broken down the script, I have it so ingrained that my research/drawing process can be more intuitive. I start to amass research images from every conceivable source, and, in particular, I make an effort not to rely on a mere Google image search. I dig as deep as possible into whatever the subject at hand is, uncovering hopefully along the way the perfect image that can then set me off into the mode of drawing or executing a design.

Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games

“I DIG AS DEEP AS POSSIBLE INTO WHATEVER THE SUBJECT AT HAND IS, UNCOVERING HOPEFULLY ALONG THE WAY THE PERFECT IMAGE THAT CAN SET ME OFF INTO THE MODE OF DRAWING,” SAYS LARLARB.

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LD: Is there a particular time period or style you like best or feel most comfortable working in? SL: Every kind of project is as new and challenging as any other project. A new period or style is just a new descriptor. I strongly feel that anything new, anything different, is better for me than something I’ve done before. I never want to feel I’m repeating myself.

CAROL ROSEGG

Finding Neverland

LD: What is the most challenging project you have worked on to date, and why? SL: Being part of the main creative team for the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, for the sheer scale, volume, ambition, and stakes involved. Lots of volunteer staff, not necessarily previously trained, so that takes extra time to utilize to the best effect, and lots of cooks in the bureaucratic kitchen. Retaining the spirit we intended as the creative team throughout was a huge challenge as we had so many committees and levels and personalities and commercial interests. In the end, we stuck to our guns and everyone benefited, but it was an exhausting exercise in diplomacy and design integrity. Thankfully, we got there in the end with nearly everything we intended, regardless of the obstacles. I think the end result was a testament to the ethos of never compromising for the sake of the lowest common denominator.

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Finding Neverland

“I KNEW FROM A VERY YOUNG AGE I WANTED TO BE IN A CREATIVE FIELD, AND I HAD A PENCHANT FOR DRAWING,” SAYS LARLARB.

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Q+A SU T TIR AT A NNE L A RL A RB

“I STRONGLY FEEL THAT ANYTHING NEW, ANYTHING DIFFERENT, IS BETTER FOR ME THAN SOMETHING I’VE DONE BEFORE,” SAYS LARLARB.

CAROL ROSEGG

Finding Neverland

LD: Can you talk a little about the differences in working on Broadway and for a film like Slumdog Millionaire? SL: Working for film is designing for detail, designing for the camera’s eye. The camera is quite brutal and sees way more than the human eye. When designing for the stage, designing for an audience’s eye, because of the distances involved, you must make decisions that stand quite boldly up to those distances. Nuance in details, subtlety, and minutiae are not always the primary concerns when designing for a stage production. I catch myself sometimes, making way too small-scale decisions and have to step back a good distance to really view the picture’s truth from a distance for the stage. In theatre, there is so much planning that has to stay on course, and to diverge from the plan can be very difficult at certain stages. You’ve run out of money, the changes throw people off, or there’s a need to “lock” things in order to make sure they fit in the grander scheme of things. You also are at the whim of doing something live, and it changes with every performance. A quick change can go wrong, or a costume malfunction occurs, but there’s always tomorrow’s performance to get it right. On a film like Slumdog, the fearlessness and experimentation of working with a visionary director requires a level of seriousness and commitment to a goal, of course, but also a certain level of detachment, of willingness to not be precious about every decision made until it’s shot. Of course, there’s preparation and schedules and deadlines, but everything is subject to change until it’s not, and once it’s established, it’s committed to celluloid forever, and other rules are set. So the stakes are pretty high in that regard. 2016 APRIL \\\

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Q+A SU T TIR AT A NNE L A RL A RB

Frankenstein

CATHERINE ASHMORE

LD: Is there one extraordinary costume you have designed that you can “parse”… design, building, fabrics, dying, fitting, end result? SL: My favorite design is definitely the dove bikes for the London 2012 Opening Ceremony. The release of “doves of peace” is part of the required protocol of every Opening Ceremony. For many years, it was always a live release with real doves. Then it became an expression of doves, such as Picasso’s painting of a dove on a silk flag for Barce14

lona’s Opening Ceremony, after an unfortunate accident with real doves in Seoul’s ceremony. So I knew that there needed to be a theatrical way of presenting the doves, and we, as a small creative group—there were only four of us at the outset—made a pact that every moment of protocol needed to be something really dynamic and hopefully stunning, not a mere attendance to a required bit of protocol.

CAMERON SPENCER, GETTY IMAGES

Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games

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Q+A SU T TIR AT A NNE L A RL A RB

Finding Neverland

CAROL ROSEGG

I came up with the dove bike idea as part of a bigger sequence about the role of bicycling in the UK, which got cut, and the dove bikes were the finale to that segment. The idea was that the action of cycling, legs pumping the pedals and wheels, would power the movement of wings, and that, from a distance, the wings would appear to be gliding and flapping like those x-ray photos of doves or birds in flight. The helmets would be the doves’ heads. The makeup on the cyclists would round out the head as beaks, and the body of the cyclist would disappear into the legs of a dove. From close up, they needed to look fantastic at a human scale for the TV cameras and broadcast. From high up in the top levels of the stands, they needed to look like a magical, radiant flock of birds. And the wings needed to glow in the night. I came up with the idea quite early in 16

the process and that afforded the ability of our amazing costume engineering team to research and develop the movement of the wings, which I always insisted needed to be lyrical in movement, not jerky and flapping haphazardly. So we brought in a few amazing minds, people who’d worked at Jim Henson’s and on animatronic projects, and they figured out the movement first. Meanwhile, my team and I were going back and forth on the quality of the materials of the wings. I knew I wanted them to be ethereal and lit up from the inside. We’d discussed modern technical fabrics, smart fabrics, and landed on a fiber optic mode. The surface of the wings would be covered in light organza feathers, all hand-stitched by volunteer staff. Even the eyes on the helmets were hand-cut vinyl adhesive that were individually applied.

Finding Neverland

CAROL ROSEGG

Frankenstein

CATHERINE ASHMORE

Waitress

It was all quite a low-fi operation, which was great. They didn’t need to be slick and manufactured, but rather sort of human-scale, human-generated, and then transcend that. We had rehearsal wings, prototypes attached to backpacks, and had a fixed point to the handlebars to connect them to the wheel movement, and these were assigned to 75 riders, who practiced the movement with them in formation for weeks, choreographed by Bob Haro, who is a legend in the BMX world. Each rider had a specific bike, a specific set of wings, all customized to optimize the movement and aid in the overall appearance of tandem flying. The result was a mechanical costume that all-in-all took probably 18 months to develop, from start to finish, about four or five prototypes in between. I’m not sure I’ll ever have the luxury of that much time and effort to perfect something, and the team’s amazing efforts from the outset, being inspired by the potential of the idea, is really what drove that design process to success in the end. LD: Have you used any 3D printing in your work? SL: No, not as yet. It’s imminent, though. LD: What advice would you give young designers just starting out today? SL: Please don’t underestimate the power of a solid work ethic and a good, positive attitude. Make yourselves indispensable and reliable and enterprising. People will remember and reward you. 2016 APRIL \\\

JEREMY DANIEL

Frankenstein at National Theatre in London

COURTESY OF SUTTIRAT LARLARB

Of Mice And Men

Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games

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B O O K : A C O U S T I C S O F M U LT I - U S E PERFORMING ARTS CENTERS

G RUSS IMAGES

A NEW BOOK FO

OR ACOUSTICS ACOUSTICS OF MULTI-USE PERFORMING ARTS CENTERS: TUNING THE HALL, PART TWO /// BY MARK HOLDEN

Part one of this article ran in our March issue.

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B O O K : A C O U S T I C S O F M U LT I - U S E PERFORMING ARTS CENTERS

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DALLAS CITY PERFORMANCE HALL HAS SIDE WALL ACOUSTIC BANNERS PARTIALLY DEPLOYED FOR CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERTS.

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INTRODUCING MUSICIANS I always find it thrilling to witness the first musical performance in a newly designed facility. Remember that tuning a hall is like tuning a piano: The piano tuner begins by forcing the string out of tune, and then brings it gradually into tune. Following that basic idea, begin with all drapes fully deployed. Understand that the hall will never be used for unamplified musical performance in this configuration as it will sound dead and muffled. Gradually, store each group of drapes, listening to differences in sound in all parts of the hall. Listen for increased reverberation, but also listen for the timbre differences, the sense of surround, the balance of low to high registers, the loudness and the energy levels. Document the settings with acoustic instrumentation, and take images to record the process for later use. With the shell in its full configuration, meaning with all ceilings and towers in place, start with musicians far upstage within the shell. Experience indicates this is not the best sound, but it is the starting point of a process that is aurally complex and time-limited. The simple yet effective practice is to begin at the poorest setting and make incremental improvements. 22

TUNING WITH A PIANO A new hall often gets a new nine foot Steinway B piano. The solo grand piano is ideal for tuning because it is percussive, full frequency, and dynamic. It moves easily about the stage, has a large repertoire of music to test, and a high-quality pianist is not difficult to find.

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FINDING THE IDEAL LOCATION IN THE SHELL The forestage lift is often the best musician location because the hall is usually energized, meaning that the reverberation level is closer to the direct sound. Overall, the piano is louder, and better feedback to musicians exists. More shell support and better onstage hearing exists for musicians in an upstage position, but there is often a disconcerting lack of feedback from the hall itself.

TUNING: WAGNER NOËL PAC, MIDLAND, TX, 2009, DUET OF CLARINET AND PIANO PLAY IN VARIOUS STAGE LOCATIONS TO FIND THE ACOUSTIC SWEET SPOT.

THE BOOK CAN BE PURCHASED AT CRC PRESS ONLINE HERE:

THE BOOK CAN ALSO BE PURCHASED ON AMAZON.COM FOR KINDLE AND HARDCOVER HERE:

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B O O K : A C O U S T I C S O F M U LT I - U S E PERFORMING ARTS CENTERS

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REMEMBER THAT TUNING A HALL IS LIKE TUNING A PIANO: THE PIANO TUNER BEGINS BY FORCING THE STRING OUT OF TUNE AND THEN BRINGS IT GRADUALLY INTO TUNE.

SETTINGS FOR PIANO Starting with all drapes deployed, the sound moves from bad to good. Tonality of the piano may change dramatically as the drapes are stored. Normally, the drapes should be set so the sound is a little over the top, meaning a bit muddy in the lower register and lacking definition in the upper notes. The audience will settle the sound down to just the right level. SETTINGS FOR CHORAL ENSEMBLE (12 TO 15 VOICES) WITH PIANO Start with a simple riser system and position the ensemble in their normal performance mode but against the upstage wall of the shell. Musicians seem to like the way

their sound is blended in this position, but remember, conditions are different outside of rehearsal. Move them downstage in increments until an ideal location is found. The location is ideal when the chorus sounds bright and clear, when vocal diction is well-defined, and with a strong resonant component. A word of caution: A location too close to the audience may lose the vibrant support of the orchestra shell for the musicians. Drapes should be settled into position after listening and consulting with the choral director and accompanist. Remember to set drapes at positions that may be slightly too reverberant with the anticipation that the hall will dry out with an audience.

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in many halls, this location THE LOCATION IS IDEAL WHEN lacks impact THE CHORUS SOUNDS BRIGHT AND and vibrancy CLEAR, WHEN VOCAL DICTION in the audience IS WELL-DEFINED, AND WITH A chamber and is STRONG RESONANT COMPONENT. visually unacceptable. Musicians voice the opinion that rehearsals with the adjustthey want to be able acoustic systems as close to the audience as deployed is a diagnostic possible, out on the lifts at tool for hearing echoes, the edge of the stage. This sound focusing off rear may ultimately become walls, early reflections the preferred location, and distribution of direct but it frequently presents energy that are indistinct issues with onstage hearwhen the hall is fully revering. Moving upstage about berant. Dallas City Perfor10’ (3m) from the stage mance Hall has side wall edge often enables a benacoustic banners partially eficial early reflection off deployed for chamber the stage floor. This is often music concerts. the preferred performance For rehearsals, a parlocation. tially deployed drape and Acoustic banners and banner combination better drapes are most likely in approximates the audience the fully-stored position absorption effect. This for symphonic performeans that the change mances, but not always. when the audience arrives I have found that leavis less drastic. ing a rear balcony drape deployed is wise if the hall rarely fills to capacity during symphonic performances. Listening to

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SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRA The ceiling angles of the shell should be fine-tuned based on extensive listening onstage with the musicians. Flattening the ceiling reflectors will improve onstage hearing but comes at the expense of sound projection to the audience. Overly loud brass and percussion can be tempered by flattening the ceilings or by raising the rear-most ceiling element, if there is one, to bleed more sound into the stage. Lowering ceiling pieces often improves onstage hearing for musicians but also results in higher onstage volume levels that throw sound off balance. When the ceiling is too low, sound becomes harsh and brittle in loud passages. Once again, begin with the musicians fully upstage and move them downstage in increments after listening to the rehearsal for thirty minutes or so. Musicians often prefer their own sound when in the far upstage position, but

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B O O K : A C O U S T I C S O F M U LT I - U S E PERFORMING ARTS CENTERS

SYMPHONIC RISERS I often take a non-traditional approach to orchestral risers. Our shell ceiling designs make the risers almost unnecessary for onstage hearing. The last few stands of the violins can be raised if they canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hear well, and woodwinds and French horns can be placed on risers to help them hear and be more audible in the hall. It is counterproductive to place brass and percussion on risers because they are the most powerful instruments in the orchestra in terms of raw sound power level (loudness), and they can easily overpower the strings. Why exacerbate balance issues by placing brass and percussion on risers? Cello boxes, or resonant risers for each cello, can be useful when there is an apparent lack of cello energy in the hall. Bass risers can also add a few decibels to increase bass loudness in the hall. Maestro Neal Gittleman, conductor of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra at the Schuster Center in Dayton, Ohio, confided that he had tried every possible combination of orchestral risers over many years to find the best sound. Ultimately, he reverted back to our tuned setting of all musicians flat on the floor. Risers are called for when there is a demand for better visual impact of the orchestra. Modern audiences want to see the musicians clearly and risers facilitate this. However, risers must be accounted for in the tuning process because they will affect shell ceiling positioning.

THEY HAVE VAST EXPERIENCE

LISTENING TO THE DIRECT SOUND

OF MUSIC BUT NOT NECESSARILY TO THE HALL ALONE OR TO ITS

REVERBERATION AND REFLECTIONS.

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B O O K : A C O U S T I C S O F M U LT I - U S E PERFORMING ARTS CENTERS

COLLABORATION Y– JOURNAL ENTR N E D L O H A note on collaboration in K R A M 2011 tuning: I find working with NOVEMBER 9, artists and musicians to be er Noël uning Wagn T ter at thrilling and enlightening ing Arts Cen rm fo r e P the on a number of levels. This y of Texas of it rs e iv n U e Th group listens in a way that is sin different from how engineers Permian Ba xas with and consultants listen. They I arrived in Te gret. I was re have vast experience listening nticipation and y hear the a to the direct sound of music ll excited to fina work with live but not necessarily to the hall acoustics and artists performalone or to its reverberation musicians and just balloon and reflections. Instead of openended questions like, “What do ing, rather than claps. Regret you think?” I prefer to ask if they pops and hand ay be the last could hear themselves well and knowing this m nd because it what differences they noticed time I’m here a at few will visit between different locations. After is so remote th te what is here. listening intently and considering their feedback, I found often that it and apprecia the musicians were right. The entire design team, contractor, and owners worked together in a partnership that allowed me, a kid from Hudson, Ohio, to look really good! Without great architects and builders and owners, this would never have happened, and this great building that will stand for 50 to 100 years would not exist, and I would not have had a chance to participate. I get all the credit, but I alone really can do little. Now, millions of audience members will have a chance to be transported, to be moved and escape or thrilled or just enjoy something very special. I’m an incredibly lucky guy! The hall is a cleanly designed acoustic diagram, it’s simple and straightforward. The shell, lift, forestage, and drapes are tunable, while the rest of the walls, floors, ceilings, and balconies in the room—the vessel—are not tunable but made so that these elements mesh perfectly with our adjustable systems.

This hall is stripped down to just what is needed acoustically but no less. Losing any single acoustic element would be a tipping point, and the acoustics would fail. The elements that are here, such as the wall shaping, are optimized to best response but no more than is needed. The wall elements are shaped like oversized bricks and modulate in depth and size to provide mid-and high-frequency diffusion, but they end at the ceiling line. The ceiling was really a curtain of glowing LEDs that resemble a star field, and above that are flat masonry walls triple painted to seal the block. The ceiling structure, drape pockets, forestage grid, and large round return air ducts provide diffusion in this zone. Shifting from wall treatments below the ceiling to suspended-in-space diffusion elements above was a potent and cost-effective strategy. Ceiling reflectors are another area where only the minimal ceiling was used; no surface was there simply for architectural form or conceit. In fact, the ceiling is a netting of LED lights that is acoustically transparent, hung from the catwalks. The only ceiling that is needed acoustically is the forestage array that ends at the edge of the stage extension and the ceiling below the catwalk over the balcony.

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B O O K : A C O U S T I C S O F M U LT I - U S E PERFORMING ARTS CENTERS

Mark Holden is chairman and lead acoustic designer at Jaffe Holden Acoustics, located in Norwalk, CT. He has collaborated on hundreds of diverse performance and exhibition space designs throughout the world. He thrives on the creative design processes that call on his unique skills as an engineer, physicist, communicator, and former jazz musician to create superior acoustic environments. Holden has authored numerous papers and columns for major trade publications. He lectures at universities across the United States, including Harvard and the University of Miami. He is a member of the National Council of Acoustical Consultants and elected fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. 30

TUNING: ANNENBERG CENTER FOR PERFORMING ARTS, LOS ANGELES, CA, 2013; AUTHOR LISTENING TO USC CHAMBER ORCHESTRA FOR SETTING OF CEILING REFLECTOR ANGLES.

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DESIGNER MICHAEL YEARGAN RECEIVES ROBERT L.B. TOBIN AWARD FOR SUSTAINED EXCELLENCE

PAUL KOLNIK

/// BY MEGH A N PERK INS

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JOAN MARCUS

egendary scenic and costume designer Michael Yeargan has, of late, been in rehearsals for four operas at once. The co-production between Washington National Opera and San Francisco Opera of Richard Wagnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ring Cycle, comprising The Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Twilight Of The Gods, will open at the Kennedy Center in Washington at the end of April. Meanwhile, he is still designing sets for three more plays. A master of time management, Yeargan is also a master of his art, and as such, will be awarded the Robert L.B. Tobin Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatrical Design during the TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards ceremony on Friday, May 20. As resident scenic designer for the Yale Repertory Theatre and professor at Yale School of Drama for 42 years, Yeargan has been devoted to design all his life.

Fiddler On The Roof at The Broadway Theatre in 2015

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Ariadne Auf Naxos at The Metropolitan Opera in 1993

C O UR T E

S Y OF T H

E ME T R O

P OL ITA N

OP E R A

The designer grew up in Dallas, Texas during the ‘50s when The Metropolitan Opera had a touring arm that brought four operas to Dallas every spring. “I had a wonderful music teacher when I was in grade school, who would tell us the stories of the operas and plays,” Yeargan explains, who was very excited whenever she took the class to an opera and brought the students backstage. His teacher suggested he take old shoeboxes and make scenes from the operas. “Well, I just thought that was the greatest thing in the world.” Yeargan’s grandfather, a civic leader in Dallas at the time, was on the board that brought The Met to Dallas every year, so he got great tickets to La Bohème—the first opera he ever saw, and ironically, ever designed, at Nevada Opera Company in 1970. “I was fourth row center, and the curtain went up, and I thought it was just the most amazing thing I’d ever seen,” he says. “I’ve been hooked ever since.” 36

CLIVE BARDA

Then, “like a total nerd,” Yeargan says, “I just constantly made models.” He bought Opera News Magazine and created models from the pictures of what The Met was going to perform every Saturday on their national broadcasts. In high school, he designed the sets for his first musical, Plain And Fancy. “I don’t show anyone pictures of that,” the designer enthuses. “I don’t think there are pictures of that. Thank God!” Aware from a very young age that he wanted to be a set designer, Yeargan would usher for the Dallas Summer Musicals, six musicals for two weeks each. “I would watch those shows every night, and I learned so much about set design, about how the scenery worked, and I was totally fascinated by it,” he explains. Yeargan’s father took him to see Dallas-based set designer Peter Wolf, who advised Yeargan to get a good liberal arts education, and to specialize later in grad school.

T. CHARLES ERICKSON

Misalliance at Long Wharf Theatre in 1994

Eugene Onegin at Welsh National Opera in 1980

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Eugene Onegin at Welsh National Opera in 1980

Yeargan did just that, attending Stetson University in Florida, and studying in Spain as part of a junior year abroad program. He traveled all around Europe, seeing plays and operas, and “the best part was seeing theatre from another viewpoint,” he says. After graduating from Stetson, he attended Yale School of Drama, where he hoped to study with Donald Oenslager, who actually started that program. Upon arriving at Yale, Yeargan was informed that Oenslager was leaving at the end of the semester, and that Ming Cho Lee was going to take over. “But then I had the fortunate opportunity to study with both of them at the same time, and they were diametrically opposed,” Yeargan states. “But it was an amazing experience.” He designed for the Yale Repertory Theatre, went and taught at Boston University for a year, and then was asked to come back and be the resident scenic designer at the Yale Rep and teach in 1974. He has been there ever since.

2016 APRIL \\\ CLIVE BARDA

CLIVE BARDA

The Merry Widow at the Welsh National Opera in 1984

CLIVE BARDA

Eugene Onegin at Welsh National Opera in 1980

Yeargan pinpoints his big break when he worked with Romanian director Andrei Șerban, who visited Yale, where they designed a production of Strindberg’s Ghost Sonata. “It really opened me up to a whole new way of thinking about theatre,” claims the designer. “I sort of sensed it when I saw European theatre but there was nothing quite as avant-garde or different about it as that experience.” Șerban became a very good friend, and the two designed upwards of ten productions together, including 40

Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Welsh National Opera, taking him outside the American system where he gained significant European exposure, designing in England, France, Scotland, Germany, and even Australia. “But I still stayed part of the American system, and I’m proud of that,” he affirms, working at Long Wharf Theatre, Hartford Stage Company, The Public Theatre, and more. “I was deeply involved in the American regional theatre movement, which was kind of at its peak at that time.”

COURTESY OF MICHAEL YEARGAN

Fiddler On The Roof at The Broadway Theatre in 2015 For Eugene Onegin at Welsh National Opera, Yeargan was asked to design both sets and costumes, as most European designers do. “I couldn’t draw people,” he admits, yet he had a wonderful fascination with costume design ever since studying at Yale. “When I was thrown into it with Eugene Onegin, it just became expected whenever I worked for the Welsh National Opera that I would do both,” he says. While his first love is scenic design, Yeargan enjoyed costume design as it allowed him to interact more with the cast, generating a wonderful camaraderie. He designed both for his first production at The Met—Ariadne Auf Naxos—as well as Così Fan Tutte. “I felt like I knew set design very well, but I always felt like I was fooling people with costume design,” Yeargan confesses. As his teaching commitments began to increase, Yeargan decided it was time to let go of costume design. “Also, some of my best friends are costume designers,” he says. “So when people ask that question, ‘Why don’t you do it anymore?’ I say, ‘Well, who do you have dinner with during tech? Yourself?’” 2016 APRIL \\\

JOAN MARCUS

Another close relationship Yeargan treasures is that with director Bartlett Sher, whom he first met while working at The Hartford Stage Company when Sher was an associate director to Mark Lamos. Later, when Sher was running the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, he called Yeargan to do a production of Light In The Piazza, written by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel and directed by Lucas. Although Yeargan could not design the first incarnation of it due to previous commitments, he did design the sets for the second, a co-production with Goodman Theatre, after it had been decided that it was best for the playwright not to direct his own work, and Sher took over as director. It moved onto Lincoln Center Theater, where it was nominated for 11 Tony Awards, winning six, three of which went to Yeargan, Christopher Akerlind, and Catherine Zuber for best scenic, lighting, and costume design, respectively.

Fiddler On The Roof at The Broadway Theatre in 2015

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Ariadne Auf Naxos at The Metropolitan Opera in 1993 COURTESY OF THE METROPOLITAN OPERA

Fiddler On The Roof at The Broadway Theatre in 2015

Guettel is the grandson of Richard Rodgers, and his mother, Mary Rodgers Guettel, very much admired the production. The Rodgers & Hammerstein estate had held back the rights to South Pacific for years, but after Light In The Piazza, she gave Lincoln Center the rights under the condition that the same creative team would direct and design it. The revival of South Pacific earned 11 Tony Award nominations, winning eight, four of which went to Yeargan, Don-

ald Holder, Zuber, and Scott Lehrer for best scenic, lighting, costume, and sound design, respectively. The set designer also worked with Sher on the Broadway productions of Fiddler On The Roof, The King And I, The Bridges Of Madison County, Awake And Sing!, and more. “I never thought that I would have a Broadway career, and suddenly, I had done these musicals and plays, mainly with Bart, and I’m very, very happy about that,” Yeargan says.

Light In The Piazza at Lincoln Center Theater in 2005

COURTESY OF MICHAEL YEARGAN

The King And I at the Lincoln Center Theater in 2015

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The King And I at the Lincoln Center Theater in 2015 46

CLIVE BARDA

He is currently working with Sher on OSLO, a new play by J. T. Rogers, in the Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center. Besides OSLO and The Ring cycle, Yeargan is also designing sets for an opera production of Romeo And Juliet at Chicago Lyric Opera and next season at The Met as well as a new Steve Martin play for The Old Globe in San Diego. “Your own personality and who you are should be what inform your design,” Yeargan tells his students, a philosophy he consistently practices. “Keep that human quality, your own personal battle and soul in your work, and you become who you are by your work.”

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ROBERTO RICCI

FE ATURE

PAS

DE TROIS TWO DANCERS AND A PIANO AS LIT BY CLIFTON TAYLOR

/// B Y E L L E N L A M P E R T- G R E A U X

ne of Clifton Taylor’s fortes is illuminating dance, and this talent was once again brought to light with Trio: ConcertDance, an evening of ballet featuring dancers Alessandra Ferri and Herman Cornejo, with pianist Bruce Levingston in a pas de trios. Taylor’s lighting and Deanna Berg MacLean’s costumes were the perfect accompaniment to pieces by a variety of contemporary choreographers. Taylor built this project pretty much from the ground floor up. “Alessandra and I worked together on an opera in New York a couple of years ago, The Raven, where she was dancing in the doubled role of the lead player,” he explains. “She called me a little while after that production, and I invited her and her dancing partner, the great Herman Cornejo, to a dance concert of my work at Lincoln Center. We had a meeting shortly after where they introduced me to the idea of the project: a very special evening of solos and duets along with the superb concert pianist Bruce Levingston. From the beginning, the concept was to include all three performers on the stage with equal weight and emphasis.

FE ATURE

I THINK IF YOU’RE REALLY LISTENING AND WATCHING A WORK OF DANCE OR MUSIC, IT WILL HELP LEAD YOU TO FIND SOMETHING THAT IS UNIQUE TO IT.

The concert was named Trio: ConcertDance to emphasize the equal importance of the music and the dance to the whole experience. From there, I worked with the individual choreographers to conceptualize the light space for each piece. I didn’t really talk about the evening as a whole with the choreographers. I didn’t want to influence their work in terms of the whole concert at the beginning of the process; this came later, closer to the premieres in Italy when we were putting the show together.” To give each piece a different visual feel, Taylor works in an organic kind of way, finding that each look “grows naturally out of a desire to, as always, let a piece find its perfect environment. I think if you’re really listening and watching a work of dance or music, it will help lead you to find something that is unique to it. The variety of the evening comes from those specific choices,” he points out. “After that, of course, there is some curation that is going to happen, and pieces get arranged with a thought to the flow of the event from a dance and music perspective.” When Trio: ConcertDance, which premiered in Italy in 2015 (and performed in Parma, Modena, and Cremona), was seen at The Joyce in New York City in March 2016, Taylor basically used the theatre’s rep plot, “one that we dance folks know so well! But it is a very robust plot, so that there 50

ROBERTO RICCI

Clifton Taylor

Trio: ConcertDance features all three performers on the stage with equal weight and emphasis.

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ROBERTO RICCI

Taylor wanted to create a light for the work that both contains the dancers in small spaces but also embeds a movement within the light.

is usually something you can find in it that will work for you,” the LD notes. The rig, which varies from theatre to theatre, comprises primarily ETC Source Fours, PARS, cyc lighting, hand-cut custom gobos, PCs in Europe, and Philips Vari-Lite VL3500s for moving light effects, rented from PRG in New York. “The VL3500s came originally for Entwine, a piece by Russell Maliphant, which is quite haunting and fluid. I wanted to create a light for the work which both contains the dancers in small spaces but also embeds a movement within the light, which is quite fast and fluid, like a flow of water or clouds sped up in a video. I needed the moving lights to create these changing,

morphing spaces that were also windows of light movement. Of course, once the VLs are in the room, they became useful for other things as well, and I used them in other pieces as static specials in other parts of the evening.” The use of light and color informs each of the pieces on the program, such as the first piece, Flair by Denis Volpi, and set to a Ligeti work. “It is about breathing,” says Taylor. “The work begins with a slowly pulsing environment, which emerges from a quiet, cold space and morphs into a warm, bright daytime feel.” The second piece, Momentum, is a solo by Cornejo, made for himself to Philip Glass’ “Piano Etude 16.” “It has a very 2016 APRIL \\\

FE ATURE

THE WORK BEGINS WITH A SLOWLY PULSING ENVIRONMENT, WHICH EMERGES FROM A QUIET, COLD SPACE AND MORPHS INTO A WARM, BRIGHT DAYTIME FEEL.

ROBERTO RICCI

Clifton Taylor

IN-HOUSE GEAR LIST AT THE JOYCE CONTROL 2 ETC EOS Console, Full Tracking Backup DIMMING 252 Philips Strand CD-80 2.4kW Dimmer 18 Philips Strand CD-80 6kW Dimmer 48 ETC Sensor Dimmer FIXTURES 4 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 (additional rental from PRG) 245 ETC Source Four 36° 575W

143 ETC Source Four 26° 575W 59 ETC Source Four 19° 575W 30 ETC Source Four 50° 575W 35 ETC Source Four PAR 6 ETC Source Four® MultiPAR 4-Circuit WFL 575W 6 ETC Source Four® MultiPAR 3-Circuit MFL 575W 12 Berkey Colortran Far Cyc 2 Strong Trouperette Followspot 1,000W 20 PAR 64 1kW (WFL, MFL, NSP, VNSP) 1 MDG Atmosphere Hazer

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ROBERTO RICCI

The use of light and color informs each of the pieces on the program.

external, masculine force to it,” Taylor explains. “I made lighting that was more directional and has a feeling of strength and exposure. Next comes a really gorgeous Pavane by Stanton Welch to music by Ravel (“Pavane For A Dead Princess”). “Stanton used the piano as an object, and it’s the first time in the concert that the piano and dance space are integrated visually,” notes Taylor. “Despite its title, the duet has a lot of lift in it and is quite romantic.” Fang-Yi Sheu created a solo for Ferri called Senza Tempo. “This is such an important hinge moment in the show,” according to Taylor. “We begin by presenting a silhouette, a clear light just at the center of the stage. Alessandra appears off-center, and to me, that choice informs the entire dance. It makes what could have been a kitchy, rock-star entrance into something quite human and poignant. The dance emerges as a kind of summation of the life of a dancer. It is very honest and disarming so I made a space, which is really about clear light, almost like a dance studio in an afternoon rehearsal on a beautiful day. There is the hint of a window projection on the floor and diagonal backlight.” Entwine, the duet by Russell Maliphant, was made to Philip Glass’ “Metamorphosis Two,” which, as Taylor notes, features “cloudy movement of light

and morphing squares that contain the movements. It is really the opposite visually of Alessandra’s solo.” The final segment is the pas de deux from Angelin Preljocaj’s great work Le Parc. “This was the only work not created specifically for the program, but still, I created a new lighting design for the piece,” the LD adds. “I set it within a dappled light space made from hand cut patterns in the lights, all coming from upstage right. The work is so intensely romantic, featuring a long kiss, which occurs during a spinning lift that is quite memorable. I wanted them to be their most beautiful and also for the audience to really be able to know them in this work.” In between the dance works are solo piano pieces performed by Levingston. “Each of these also has its own lighting and color idea, which sometimes leads into the following dance work but sometimes are really separate and independent visual ideas about the music that he is performing,” says Taylor, who designed this event to tour. South America is next on the schedule, with the first dates confirmed in November at Teatro del Lago in southern Chile, where Taylor feels at home. “I was one of the theatre consultants for Teatro del Lago, so I designed the lighting systems and worked with the architect on many other issues during its design and construction,” he says.

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COVER STORY

SPACE REVOLUTION SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’S NEWEST EVENT, MEETING, AND PRODUCTION FACILITY: AV /// B Y M A R I A N S A N D B E R G

COVER STORY

outhern California’s Irvine Spectrum Center is an outdoor shopping mecca for the retail enthusiast in the heart of Orange County. With shops, dining, and entertainment options, it was an obvious location for a new event facility for Kris Plourde, CEO of AV and N-Effect Productions, who designed, developed, and built the space from the ground up. “The project started as three-and-a-half acres of land and has become the go-to for special events and corporate meetings in the area,” says Plourde, who adds that his team worked alongside the builder and architects to create what he calls “a truly revolutionary event space with unlimited possibilities.” Plourde envisioned a space that encompassed everything a venue could be, including “plenty of power and ease of access, with all the bells and whistles built in.” AV was inspired by the idea of the client looking for a unique and non-traditional event space. “In the fast-paced world of social media and the Internet, clients want something fresh and interactive,” says Plourde. “There is a fine balance between the location of the event and the event itself. If you rent a hotel ballroom for a corporate meeting, you could easily spend $50,000 plus to create a presentation that conveys your message properly. This plus the cost of the venue add up quickly.” AV, on the other hand, offers a completely turnkey space that includes customized lighting design and programming by the onsite team, as well as all other production.

KRIS PLOURDE, CEO OF AV AND N-EFFECT PRODUCTIONS, DESIGNED, DEVELOPED, AND BUILT THE SPACE FROM THE GROUND UP.

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COVER STORY

The result is a space within a space: AV is actually located inside N-Effect Productions’ new design studio and headquarters. The entire venue encompasses 25,000sqft.—the main room is more than 9,000sqft.—within which, Plourde says, are “more than 188 individual moving lights, concert sound, and a larger-than-life LED wall that is ready at a moment’s notice.” The venue aesthetic is modern, and its 27’-high ceilings accommodate a wealth of possibilities for stages and effects, and while everything is customizable and flexible, it is also plug-and-play for other production companies. “Sometimes, high-profile clients have their own traveling or in-house production teams,” adds Plourde. “We wanted to create a space that was just as easy for other companies to work in as it is for our team. From years of experience touring and doing shows on the road, this was an important item for us. They can access our board and plug into our patch.” The lighting system, based entirely around products from Elation Professional, includes 12 Platinum Beam 5R Extremes— the workhorses of the rig—for aerial effects and 10 Platinum SBX units for gobos and texture. Twelve ZFX Pro XL fixtures provide all-around color wash, while eight DW Profiles handle stage washes. Finally, 36 Event Bar LEDs create what Plourde says are “great pin spot looks but, with 144 individual moving heads, create huge visual effects, as well.” A High End Systems Road Hog 4 controls the venue’s lighting, while four ½-ton motors on a Skjonberg controller accommodate basic rigging as well as additional client requirements.

Plourde and his team were creating the aesthetic and design of the interior of the building as it was going up around them.

2016 APRIL \\\

COVER STORY

“We wanted to have a variety of fixtures for all types of events, whether they’re more music-based events or corporate events or weddings,” says Plourde. “We can cover every aspect that you would need, whether it’s a wall wash or pin spot or large moving light effects, so we wanted to have a little bit of everything in our system. The number of fixtures we have and how we have them set up is perfect for our space.” The LED video wall—144 tiles of Absen 5mm LED—extends 26’x15’ in the main room and runs via a Barco ImagePro-II Dual unit, fed from a Blackmagic Design Smart Videohub and Blackmagic Design ATEM Production Studio 4K switcher. “Clients can also plug directly into a patch panel that connects straight to the screen that gives them ultimate control as well,” says Plourde. “We run a large variety of software, including Powerpoint, ProPresenter, Resolume Arena, Spotify, and many, many more. We also have the entire building and all software linked to an iPad for easy access for programing and tuning.” Video content has a variety of sources, from Shock Graphics and in-house custom elements to higher end content created by partners such as V Squared Labs. “Clients are blown away by the lighting when they walk in the door, and the massive LED wall is a crowd pleaser, for sure,” says Plourde. 64

THE LIGHTING SYSTEM IS BASED ENTIRELY AROUND PRODUCTS FROM ELATION PROFESSIONAL. 2016 APRIL \\\

COVER STORY

The venue’s audio is based around a QSC speaker system and a Midas M32-IP digital console, with a DL16 digital mixing stagebox. “Our focus is the main showroom, but we have QSC AD-C152ST speakers and Samsung 4K LCD screens throughout the lobby and second floor mezzanine, too,” says Plourde, who adds that his team worked directly with manufacturers to acquire gear for the new space. “Ben Frederick from Audio Geer assisted with the QSC products, Raul E. Fonseca and John Dunn on the Elation side, and Paul Motal and Matrix Visual Solutions for the LED wall.” What’s not available at AV? Not much: Given its co-location with N-Effect Productions, the venue has a full production department on site and can offer everything from cryo and haze to full-color lasers to control via iPad. “The new app technology was by far the coolest thing in the build,” says Plourde. “We can control audio, video, and lighting all from an iPad anywhere onsite. This is especially helpful for client walk-throughs and demos, where one person can walk and talk with the clients and trigger lighting demos and video rolls without the need for an entire team backstage. This sells the clients every time and makes last-minute site walks a breeze.” Plourde notes that, while budget is always a factor in a build of this scale, time was the biggest constraint, as his team was creating the aesthetic and design of the interior as the building was going up around them. “For the most part, AV is a showroom and a place to explore ideas and R&D projects,” he says. “I think we’ll continually be upgrading the space and adding new elements here and there. I don’t think we’ll ever really be done with the design.” He adds that his team has created a venue that sets the bar “at a new level without going over the top. We’re saving ‘over the top’ for the next one.”

AV WAS INSPIRED BY THE IDEA OF THE CLIENT LOOKING FOR A UNIQUE AND NON-TRADITIONAL EVENT SPACE.

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COVER STORY

AV Gear Lighting 1 High End Systems Road Hog 4 36 Elation Professional Event Bar 12 Elation Professional Platinum Beam 5R Extreme 10 Elation Professional Platinum SBX 12 Elation Professional ZFX Pro XL 8 Elation Professional DW Profile Video Absen 26’x15’ 5mm LED Wall 1 Barco ImagePro II Dual 1 Barco ImagePro II 1 Blackmagic Design Smart Videohub 1 Blackmagic Production Studio 4K Switcher 2 Apple 27’’ iMac 2 Apple TV 4

6 65’’ Samsung 4K LCD Monitor 1 85’’ Samsung 4K LCD Monitor Sound 1 Midas M32-IP Digital Console 1 Midas DL16 Digital Mixing Stagebox 12 QSC WL3082 WideLine-8 Line Array 4 QSC GP218-SW Subwoofer 2 QSC AcousticPerformance™ AP-5102 Delay Fill 2 Community V2-28 Loudspeaker 10 QSC AD-C152ST CeilingMount Loudspeaker 5 QSC PLD4.5 Processing Amplifier 2 QSC CDX4.2 Power Amplifier 2 Apple iPad 4 Staging Steeldeck 4x8 and 4x4

TWELVE ELATION PROFESSIONAL PLATINUM BEAM 5R EXTREMES—THE WORKHORSES OF THE RIG—ARE USED FOR AERIAL EFFECTS WHILE 10 PLATINUM SBX UNITS ARE USED FOR GOBOS AND TEXTURE.

See more of AV

2016 APRIL \\\

COVER STORY

Four Â˝-ton motors on a Skjonberg controller accommodate basic rigging as well as additional client requirements.

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COVER STORY

AV Lighting Plot

Video content has a variety of sources, from Shock Graphics and in-house custom elements to higher end content created by partners including V Squared Labs.

2016 APRIL \\\

COVER STORY

The LED video wall—144 tiles of Absen 5mm LED—extends 26’x15’ in the main room.

A High End Systems Road Hog 4 controls the venue’s lighting.

The venue features more than 188 individual moving lights, concert sound, and a larger-than-life LED wall.

COVER STORY

AV offers a completely turnkey space that includes customized lighting design and programming by the onsite team, as well as all other production.

AV is located inside N-Effect Productionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; new design studio and headquarters.

Twelve ZFX Pro XL fixtures provide all-around color wash, while eight DW Profiles handle stage washes.

COVER STORY

THIRTY-SIX EVENT BAR LEDS CREATE PIN SPOT LOOKS AND, WHEN COMBINED WITH 144 INDIVIDUAL MOVING HEADS, HUGE VISUAL EFFECTS.

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The Veterans Memorial Building, home to the San Francisco Opera’s new Taube Atrium Theatre

Room To Grow SAN FRANCISCO OPERA GETS NEW, HIGH-TECH VENUE /// BY BRAD HATHAWAY

PHOTO OLGA LUEBKER, MARK CAVAGNERO ASSOCIATES

The exposed catwalk provides a touch of Star Wars-esque futurism hovering above a classical space.

he three city-block campus across the street from San Francisco’s ornate City Hall, known as the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, has become something of an epicenter of hightech performing arts facilities in the City by the Bay. The 2,700-seat Davies Symphony Hall has twin Barco HDF-W26 26,000-lumen projectors to provide visuals for the San Francisco Symphony as it plays the background score for films while the audience follows the action on screen. It might be a Hitchcock thriller or a special effects extravaganza. During last month’s Super Bowl, it was an evening of highlight reels from NFL Films. The hall uses Meyer Sound’s Leopard Loudspeakers and 900-LFC control system for dialog tracks and amplified PA. A floor below the symphony hall is the new SoundBox, where a Meyer Sound Constellation® system of digitally adjusted acoustics converted a sonically dead rehearsal space into a vibrant hall for adven-

turous programming for an audience of up to about 400 (“Breathing Life Into A Dead Space: Acoustical Treatments For SoundBox,” Live Design, March 2015). Across Grove Street is the 3,126seat War Memorial Opera House, where the San Francisco Opera offers “Operavision” video displays above the proscenium so that people in the balcony can see close-ups of the action going on four floors below the front railing. Under its soon-to-retire general director, David Gockley, the San Francisco Opera has been a technological innovator. In fact, Gockley kicked off his tenure in 2006 with a free outdoor simulcast in the nearby Civic Center Plaza. To date, a dozen such simulcasts have been held, nine in 42,000-seat AT&T Park, the home of the San Francisco Giants. In all, more than a quarter of a million people have attended these simulcasts. Next to the Opera House is the Veterans

Franz Schubert’s “Der Leiermann”

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SCOTT WALL, SAN FRANCISCO OPERA

Memorial Building, which just became a two-venue facility with the opening of the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theatre in a fourth-floor space that was once the home of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Where once the walls echoed to the footsteps of visitors viewing works by the likes of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Henri Matisse, now audiences sit listening to the works of Schubert, Bizet, Grieg, and Cole Porter. The Taube—a square hall featuring classical symmetry and niches, but with a suspended circular catwalk providing a touch of Star Wars-ish futurism hovering overhead—is a model of flexibility both physically and acoustically due to Meyer Sound’s Constellation system of digitally-generated acoustics. The theatre is part of the brand new 40,000 square foot Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera that also features an education studio and space for the company’s administrative offices, costume studio, and archive. It is the result of a $21 million renovation and seismic retrofit of the space in the 1930s-era building, and it brings functions of the opera company together from far flung locations around the city. Prominent Bay Area architect Mark Cavagnero faced multiple challenges planning the conversion of the fourthfloor space, not the least of which was presented by the fact that the new Taube Atrium Theatre is located directly above the 928-seat Herbst Theatre, which hosts more than 200 performances a year.

Opera at the Ballpark: One of the San Francisco Opera’s simulcasts in AT&T Park

PERHAPS THE MOST REMARKABLE CHALLENGE FACING CAVAGNERO AS HE SET OUT TO PLAN THIS RENOVATION OF A FORMERLY ACOUSTICALLY HARD AND EVEN BLARING SPACE WAS TO MAKE IT AS ACOUSTICALLY NEUTRAL AS POSSIBLE, WHILE RETAINING OR EVEN RETURNING TO ITS ORIGINAL LOOK.

Acoustically isolating the two spaces so that performances, set construction, or rehearsals in one wouldn’t be heard in the other was further complicated by the fact that the Atrium is adjacent to the Herbst’s fly space. Acoustic wall construction and a 6” floating concrete slab topped by foam, subflooring, and 1” hardwood floor was required. This meant that the floor of the theatre had to be some 9” higher than the floor of its lobby. That the isolation succeeded was amply demonstrated on Sunday, March 13, when a recital featuring mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade in the Herbst overlapped the inaugural presentation of the San Francisco Opera’s new production division in the Taube, OperaLab, a multimedia version of Franz Schubert’s song cycle “Winterreise,” featuring the booming voice of baritone Matthias Goerne. While you could hear a trace of the sound from the Herbst in the lobby of the Taube, not a whisper of a sound from below could be heard in the hall itself. Even before the house opened, it was dead silent in the empty house. Perhaps the most remarkable challenge facing Cavagnero as he set out to plan this renovation of a formerly acoustically hard and even blaring space was to make it as acoustically neutral as possible, while retaining or even returning to its original look. With a neutral space, the sounds picked up by the 24 strategically placed microphones of the Constellation system would be as natural as possible before its computer adjusted them to emulate a selected sonic environment.

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“Remember that the space was once devoted to visual art, and museum designers like to have the somewhat echoey footfalls of visitors walking through the exhibits. It gives a sense of excitement to a visit to a gallery,” Cavagnero explains, adding that “a very different environment is best for a space devoted to musical art.” The acoustics team of the design firm Arup worked with Mark Cavagnero Associates to handle the issues of sonic ambiance throughout the 40,000sq-ft. of the entire Wilsey Center, including the challenge of the Taube Theatre. Led by Arup’s associate principal Kurt Graffy, the team devised the combination of plenums, spacers, and chambers for the theatre’s walls, which also contain the 75 self-powered loudspeakers of the Constellation system to provide what Meyer Sound’s founder John Meyer calls “electroacoustic architecture.” Using a Meyer D-Mitri® digital audio platform running Variable Room Acoustic System (VRAS™) algorithms, Constellation can be set to emulate the sound you would hear in different spaces. Indeed, it can switch from the approximation of one space to that of another at the flick of a switch to “virtually adjust the shape of a venue.” This is particularly valuable for a hall like the Taube that is intended to be used for a wide variety of programs. Chamber music, for example, is often played in a space where reverberation decays down to the noise level of the room in one second, while symphony halls often aim for a two-second delay. Sacred spaces, where choral works sound best, may have three full seconds of decay. The Constellation system doesn’t only manipulate decay, however. It also approximates the immediate reflections which would come from surfaces within the space.

San Francisco Opera’s Winterreise

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STEFAN COHEN, SAN FRANCISCO OPERA

BARITONE MATTHIAS GOERNE SINGS SCHUBERT BEFORE WILLIAM KENTRIDGE’S VIDEO IN THE TAUBE ATRIUM THEATRE.

Constellation uses an array of 24 widely distributed microphones suspended from the modernistic-looking catwalk. The system also includes multichannel playback capabilities and the SpaceMap® surround panning feature that allows sounds to seem to move around the space. Meyer applications director for digital products, Steve Ellison, says the sum total of the digital capabilities of the system give the theatre a “chameleon-like quality” that performers, directors, and even composers will use in years to come in ways we can’t even guess today. “Acoustics can be an instrument in itself, a compositional tool,” says Ellison. “Someday, somebody will be writing for the room.” Elkhanah Pulitzer, who will program events in the Taube for Opera Lab, says she is “no longer limited by the shape of the room or whether the acoustics will support a new performance idea.” San Francisco Opera’s Gockley envisions leaving “a legacy for future generations to dream in ways we cannot presently imagine.” The flexibility provided by acoustic adjustability is matched by the physical adjustability of the new venue, essentially an empty box with a storehouse across the hallway filled with collapsible risers, platforms, and chairs that can be brought in and set up in a wide variety of configurations. 88

2016 APRIL \\\

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

BEFORE: WHAT IS NOW THE SAN FRANCISCO OPERA’S TAUBE ATRIUM THEATRE WAS ONCE AN ART MUSEUM.

Staging Concepts of Minneapolis provided their SC90 aluminum framed stage and riser platforms as well as aisle stairs, handrails, and mesh side closures to the venue. The seats were custom designed and manufactured by the Italy-based firm Segis. They are upholstered in order to be similar in sound absorption to clothed people so that the sonic environment is not impacted too much by the level of attendance at a performance. Each of the seats has its own cup holder. Gockley specified this feature to signal that this is to be the Opera’s informal space, where patrons are welcome to attend with a glass of wine or other libation. The drive for flexibility was not confined to acoustics or adjustable audience and stage platform configurations. Advanced capabilities for multimedia productions were designed-in from the start. Cavagnero’s office worked directly with the Opera’s technical staff, including director of production Daniel Knapp and associate technical director Ryan O’Steen. At their request, the original plan for a truss system was replaced with the futuristic-looking catwalk, which gives the staff the ability to hang and focus lights and projectors more rapidly. “The goal was to

allow changeovers in a day or so, which we couldn’t do with trusses,” says O’Steen. It was also at the request of the Opera staff that alternative wall coverings were tested on the stage in the Opera House to determine how they would handle lighting and projections. “We found that the darker of the fabrics actually gave a better result so that is what we’ve got,” says O’Steen. This was particularly important as the company has plans after this inaugural season to map all four walls in order to allow projections to create what O’Steen calls “virtual wallpaper, to provide an immersive experience that will be different for each production.” They have not selected the hardware or software for this capacity, using equipment from the company’s current stock for this first season. “We found our projector to be too noisy without baffles, so we’re using a Christie 10K for now,” he says. Most everyone we spoke with, however, whether involved in the sonic, visual or the configuration aspects of the project stressed the belief that the hall’s flexibility will allow artists to develop unexpected and exciting new programming. In O’Steen’s words, “Wonderful surprises will come out of that room.”

Brad Hathaway has provided reviews and theatre-related news and features for newspapers, magazines and websites for nearly twenty years. Before relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, he established a national voice in the theatre community from Washington, DC. While writing for print outlets, Brad came early to the digital world of the internet. He became the Broadway correspondent for Musical Stages Online and the Washington correspondent for Theatre.com. In 2001, he established Potomac Stages, the first comprehensive website covering both community and professional theatre in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia. In 2008, Brad was elected to the Executive Committee of the American Theatre Critics Association, and he currently serves as the vice chair of the Association’s Executive Committee. He and his wife now live on a houseboat in Sausalito, California.

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RENDERING BY MARK CAVAGNERO ASSOCIATES

AFTER: ARCHITECT MARK CAVAGNERO’S COMPUTERGENERATED IMAGE OF THE NEW TAUBE AUDITORIUM SET UP WITH A STAGE AT ONE CORNER.

/// BY NATALIE ROBIN

PHOTOS GIAFRESE

SUPERCINEMA FILM-THEMED PARTIES AT THE MCKITTRICK HOTEL

PHOTOS GIAFRESE

he staff of the McKittrick Hotel has an ever-changing chameleon of a place on its hands. The hotel, located in the west part of Chelsea in New York City, houses the Emursive/ Punchdrunk immersive theatre experience Sleep No More, but there’s more. Two restaurants are on site, the Gallow Green rooftop bar by summer that becomes The Lodge at Gallow Green in the winter months, and the indoor Heath restaurant, a standalone music venue-bar, plus the ever-evolving Manderley Bar that serves as the entrance to the hotel and the Sleep No More experience. Apparently, though, that’s just not enough. The McKittrick Hotel is now home to a monthly theatrical nightlife extravaganza that reinvents itself and its venue every month. Described as “an all-new way to experience nightlife through a cinematic lens,” Supercinema, brainchild of “special envoy” Cesar Hawas, is an elaborate, one-of-a-kind dance party for people looking for a “really fun night out, to dress up in a costume, and get lost in the whimsy and the spectacle of the experience,” he says.

Supercinema is an all-new way to experience nightlife through a cinematic lens.

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PHOTOS GIAFRESE

Party-goers can be watching a ten-minute spectacle in the ballroom one moment to having their fortunes read the next. Hawas is “responsible for the experience that people have in relationship to, and while they are in, the building,” through a variety of special events and marketing roles. He says it is crucial that, no matter what the event, the McKittrick “remains this menagerie of curiosities.” He sees the teams of designers, technicians, and performers inside the multilevel complex as operating with that “oldschool show folk vibe,” so everything that happens in the hotel feels like a performance. For quite some time, the parties held at the McKittrick were sporadic events tied to a holiday or theme. Masquerade balls and New Year’s extravaganzas took over the home of Sleep No More to the awe and wonder of partying crowds. “We’ve had, for years, our Sleep No More parties where we take over multiple floors of the building immediately after the performance, but it only ever made sense to peg them to a holiday,” says Hawas. “We wanted to try to find something to activate the space that is separate from Sleep No More and allowed us to engage the same internal team.” Hawas was planning a dance party that would appeal to a broader audience while still using props, set pieces, lighting, and video to create a theatrical event. He wanted to use the “same level of detail, while embracing the nightlife using theatrical elements.”

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PHOTOS GIAFRESE

To that end, Hawas and his team sought to create a “theatrically-based, narrative-driven nightlife experience,” a cinematic world “that, on its most basic level, we can get really excited about and that also you can contextualize and make sense of for the audience” so that the party-goers feel like they are entering the world of the specific film. Hawas’ team looked for a specific movie or a genre of movies that people can easily reference, unlike the Sleep No More immersive theatrical experience, which “is more eclectic and focused” and perhaps less accessible to a party-going audience.

AT ITS CORE, SUPERCINEMA IS A DANCE PARTY, BUT IT IS INFUSED WITH THEATRICAL MOMENTS.

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EACH MONTH, THE SUPERCINEMA PARTY TAKES ON A NEW IDENTITY, FROM BAZ LUHRMANN’S ROMEO + JULIET TO 007 JAMES BOND.

Each month, the Supercinema party takes on a new identity, the first of which was a Valentine’s Day party, inspired by Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. According to Hawas, the theme and the party were clearly a “match made in heaven, a starcrossed match.” The movie and its aesthetic “set itself up for a party,” he adds. Guests to each Supercinema are required to come in costume tied to the theme (although Hawas explains that there is an “all-black option” for the “stubborn” New Yorkers). After Romeo + Juliet, the second Supercinema was an ode to the world of 007 James Bond, 100

another visually evocative pop culture phenomenon. “At its core,” says Hawas, “this is a dance party, and the audience comes charged with energy.” His team’s goal is always to maintain balance and manage expectations. This isn’t the Sleep No More experience of letting the audience wander the hotel within its own teams, but the events are infused with theatrical moments. He describes the levels of engagement as everything “from watching a fifteen-person, ten minute spectacle in the ballroom, to having your fortune read” in a small side room.

PHOTOS LOREN WOHL

“Casting sessions” occur throughout the night, turning audience members into performers.

Hawas and his team love engaging the larger spaces throughout the hotel, but they use different parts of the space depending on the party. “You could stumble upon a room or closet where, boom, there is a happening or a one-on-one experience.” They use as much of the building as possible. Some of those big theatrical moments include audience members as performers, so there are even “casting sessions” throughout the night. Performers, some from Sleep No More and some new for Supercinema, are scattered throughout the building. It is important that the parties have the same “whirlwind fever dream experience of Sleep No More; we want people to have that same type of experience at Supercinema.” 2016 MARCH \\\ 101

THE SUPERCINEMA TEAM USES PROJECTIONS, BLACK LIGHTS, AND LASER INSTALLATIONS TO CREATE NEW SPACES FOR THE EVENT.

The same internal creative team that does other events and maintains Sleep No More fleshed out the details of Supercinema. “We live strongly in the world of theatre,” Hawas explains, adding that they approach every event the same way. “How do theatre people open up a restaurant or a rooftop bar, throw a party?” They do it by being quick-thinkers; creative and flexible, he adds. “Prop masters by day are party makers by night.” The team has to put as much of the equipment for the party into place before the Sleep No More performance even starts because the Supercinema party starts just moments after the climactic final scene. Sometimes that means installing an entirely different lighting rig, and sometimes it means prepping the curtains or projections systems. Some spaces require a full deconstruction and reconstruction in as little as 25 minutes. Hawas explains that they do it all with “a small army of people that get triggered the moment Sleep No More is over; I can’t speak highly enough of the skilled craftsmen, designers, and engineers that work in this building.” Hawas and his team don’t want the audience to recognize the spaces from Sleep No More. “We don’t want anyone to come to a Supercinema party and say, ‘Oh, I just saw Sleep No More here.’” So, how do you take the spaces of Sleep No More and suddenly find yourself in Gold102

finger’s Lounge? “For anyone who has an awareness of putting on a show, the challenges become very obvious,” says Hawas. “We use the literal smoke and mirrors and magic of theatre.” And they do it very, very quickly. The Supercinema team uses projections, black lights, and laser installations that are unique to these parties to help create new spaces inside of the already highly designed ones. They install black curtains and masking, where appropriate. Hawas explains that the goal is “to use the existing infrastructure to support a different aesthetic.” And for some of the spaces, his team is trying to completely reframe the experience. “How do you make the Manderley find its context within the Bond or Romeo + Juliet experience?” Sometimes, of course, equipment is supplemented for the parties. In otherwise completely dark rooms, images are projected onto the performers. Misdirection and “old-school theatrical techniques” transform one space into another. Breaking the taboo of discussing the history of the block that houses the McKittrick, Hawas explains the “ghosts of Twilo and B.E.D. [NYC nightclubs from the 1990s] are ever present.” The plan is for Supercinema to be a monthly event at the McKittrick, with the next (as yet unannounced) themed party to be at the end of April.

Hawas and his team use different parts of the Hotel space depending on the party.

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SELECT GEAR FOR SUPERCINEMA BALLROOM LIGHTING 16 Harman Martin Professional MAC Aura 16 Harman Martin Professional Rush MH3 Beam 14 Harman Martin Professional MAC Quantum Profile 6 Harman Martin Professional Rush PAR 1 RGBW 4 Harman Martin Professional MAC Atomic 3000 LED Strobe 2 CITC Super Shot Max Confetti Cannon 1 Harman Martin Professional M1 Console RGB LED Tape Neon Electroluminescent Wire Gantom Fixtures HOTEL LIGHTING 1 Harman Martin Professional M2Go Console 1 ETC Source Four Mini 1 Harman Martin Professional MAC 350 Entour 1 Elation Professional EPAR 1 Elation Professional Impression MANDERLEY LIGHTING 1 ETC Ion Console 1 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal Altman PARs Cans 3RD FLOOR EFFECTS 1 Look Solutions Unique Hazer 1 Antari ICE-101 Ice Fog Machine 1 Cool Neon Electroluminescent Wire BALLROOM VIDEO 1 Panasonic PTDZ770 Single-Chip Projector 1 Panasonic medium zoom lens 3RD FLOOR VIDEO 1 BenQ MX822ST Projector 1 Epson Small Format Projector

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BALLROOM AUDIO 6 EAW KF650z 4 EAW SB1000z 2 Firehouse F15 2 JBL 518 1 Macro Tech Amplifier 1 Apple Mac Mini 1 Antelope Orion32+ 1 Whirlwind AB3 Switcher Figure QLab 1 Shure ULX with SM58 Capsule 1 Shure PSM 1000 1 Shure SE215 1 Midas M32 Console HOTEL AUDIO 1 Firehouse F12 1 Macrotech I-Tech 1 EAW NTS250 1 Behringer X32 1 dbx DriveRack MANDERLEY AUDIO 1 EAW JF200 1 EAW JF80 1 EAW JF60 1 Meyer Sound UMS-1P 1 XTA Crossover Shure, AKG, Sennheiser Microphone 1 Midas Pro 1 Mixer 3RD FLOOR AUDIO 1 QSC K12 1 Apple iPod VENDORS Audio: Firehouse Productions Lighting: World Stage Video: New City Video

Equipment is in place before the Sleep No More performance even starts because the Supercinema party begins immediately after the final scene.

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LOREN WOHL

MCKITTRICK SUPERCINEMA STAFF Production Manager, Audio Supervisor: Benjamin Wygonik Lighting Designer: Evan Gannon Video Designer: Bibiana Medkova Lighting Supervisor: Elijah Schreiner Audio System Tech: Jake Ferrante Associate Sound Designer: Greg Hanson Audio Coordinator: Jamie Amadruto Ballroom A1: Jonathan Kreinik Ballroom A2: Yong Ho Chun Hotel A1: Colleen Arnerich Hotel A2: Max Berman Manderley A1: Mike Mascarelli Audio Engineer: Steven Carlino Video Mixer: Caleb Olsen Master Electrician: Hess Smith Electrician: Susannah Baron Electrician: Igor Yachmenov Electrician: Saul Valiunas Lighting Consultant: Devin Camerons

save the dates!

october 17-23, 2016 â&#x20AC;˘ exhibits: october 21-23, 2016 â&#x20AC;˘ las vegas

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PROBLEM/SOLUTION

MISHA KACHMAN Painting Outside The Lines

MISHA KACHMAN

/// BY DAV I N A P OLEON

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hen Misha Kachman met with director KJ Sanchez for initial talks about the set and costumes he would design for her production of Venus In Fur at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, he carried something surprising with him. “Misha said very sheepishly, ‘I’m not married to this, but I brought a model,’” she recalls. “It was a perfectly executed full design, but I wasn’t prepared to look at it and say, ‘Yeah, that’s perfect.’” She suggested t hey think about other ideas, and he drew a few. It wasn’t long before she realized the model Kachman had brought to that first meeting was just what the play needed. “He has such a knack for understanding how to build a landscape to play on,” says Sanchez. “I’ve never worked with a designer who is so thoroughly prepared before we have our first conversation.” That’s not an unusual experience for directors 108

who work with Kachman. “He’s always underselling it, but his first idea is ultimately the foundation of the design,” says Howard Shalwitz, artistic director of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in DC, which Kachman calls his artistic home. A model at an early meeting is the least of it. Kachman has been known to imagine designs before plays are finished. He helped give shape to Aaron Posner’s Stupid F*king Bird, an original take on The Seagull that is, in part, a send up of Chekhovian design clichés. “Misha is the kind of designer who can make or break a production. Stupid F*king Bird had lots of challenges and puzzles in it, especially when we were first working on it, and Misha’s design gave the whole thing both a physical and dramaturgical shape. He’s the kind of artist who can bring big, powerful ideas to the table,” says Shalwitz, who directed the world premiere at the Woolly.

RUSSIAN ROOTS

Misha Kachman grew up in St. Petersburg and studied at the St. Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy before moving to the United States in 1999 when he was 28. But he doesn’t think of himself as a Russian designer. “I’m an American designer of Russian origin,” he says. Still, he acknowledges he came to design differently than American designers. Most people who train in the United States, including the graduate students he teaches at the University of Maryland, come from the world of theatre, not fine art. Like many from his country, Kachman developed as a studio artist before discovering theatre. When he was seven or eight, his parents decided his talents warranted special training, and he began his studies. “If you want to become a professional ballet dancer or tennis player, you won’t make it unless you start early,” he notes, explaining that the same is true for painting.

“I was very interested in graphic arts and illustration in my teens,” he recalls. History interested him, too, and he dreamed of illustrating history books. As he was finishing high school at a special school for the arts that offered the usual academic studies plus 20 hours of painting and drawing each week, family friends turned him in a different direction. “They were art directors for film and television,” he

says of his early mentors. “They convinced me that I shouldn’t go to an academy of fine arts to become a studio artist but consider applying to the theatre academy.” Kachman continues to do studio work; he’s had solo shows in Russia, France, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US, and his skills serve him well in the theatre. Shalwitz says Kachman can “sit down and draw you a sketch backward.”

They convinced me that I shouldn’t go to an academy of fine arts to become a studio artist but consider applying to the theatre academy. Misha Kachman

Kachman came prepared with a set model to the initial meeting with Sanchez for Venus In Fur.

2016 APRILMISHA \\\ 109 KACHMAN

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Kachman stayed on for post-graduate study at the theatre academy, then took a day job as a staff museum designer at the State Hermitage Museum while he designed shows in Russia. That wasn’t easy. “The 1990s in St. Petersburg and most of Russia were hard for arts in general and theatre in particular. There was not a lot going on, especially compared to Russia in the 2000s,” he recalls. Soon, he was on his way to the United States with his wife, Ksenya, an educator and puppet artist, and their daughter, then five-and-a-half. Their second daughter was born after they settled in Washington, DC. When Kachman visits Russia now, artists he likes sometimes suggest doing a play together. Kachman declines, even when the project is interesting. “We’re talking in February, and the show goes up in May. I’m very American in this regard,” says the designer, who has started thinking about productions he’s slated to do in 2017.

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MISHA KACHMAN

Kachman helped give physical and dramaturgical shape to Stupid F*king Bird.

Stupid F*king Bird Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company production of Stupid F*king Bird presented by Syracuse Stage

MISHA KACHMAN

Check out an earlier story on Stupid F*king Bird

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THE DESIGNER AS CO-DIRECTOR AND DRAMATURG

In his first conversations with directors, Kachman wants to know why they are doing this play at this time. He says he learned this from his daughters. “You know how you criticize your child for something you see in the rearview mirror, and she asks, ‘Why is this important?’ and you better have a compelling answer. You can’t bullshit your child, or she will tune out.” Sometimes the answer is elaborate and philosophical, sometimes whimsical. “You have to have something to latch onto. You can’t be condescending toward the material whether you’re doing Neil Simon or Xanadu or Shakespeare. You can’t wink at the audience. You have to commit to the silliness, the kitsch. If you have an idea, you have to run with it. You can only stop when you’ve reached the logical limits of that idea,” says Kachman. Director Yury Urnov, also from Russia, says Kachman becomes a co-director when they work together, something Urnov believes comes out of the Eastern European culture. “He’s not an executor of the director’s will. He is somebody who together with the director is creating the production, the time, space, and environment for the characters,” says Urnov. “We start with what kind of world we want to build and about what kind of creatures inhabit this world. The actual stage design is the last step in this dialogue.”

MISHA KACHMAN

Our Class

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Marie Antoinette

MISHA KACHMAN

Marie Antoinette at Woolly Mammoth Theatre

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For the 2014 Woolly production of David Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette, for instance, revolution happens over time. “Marie’s world is changing from the first to last scene a lot. How do we move her from her early happy days to later? Do we begin in a big, bright set and finish in a small prison? At one point, Misha said it has to be exactly the opposite,” Urnov recalls. “Everything is flat and narrow and shifts to the open space of tragedy.” Jennifer Schriever, who designed lights for Marie Antoinette, says that Kachman is a really good dramaturg, too, “able to boil down the play to its essence.” Whenever she works with him, “I know it’s going to be something exciting and unique and outside of what I would expect and always right for the storytelling.” Schriever says the Woolly production expressed who Marie is, “like a Kardashian, beloved for being famous, not for helping anybody or for a skill. Misha translated that into the set [which] could have been a fashion runway, with ultra-green grass. All of the masking was hot pink. Marie hung out in a hot tub. As Marie falls, the set dissolves. That physical transformation is essential to telling the story.” Kachman faced the challenge of hiding the guillotine in the early scenes. “The theatre has no wing space and very little fly space,” he says, so he hid it full view. “The audience doesn’t know they were staring at the blade all along.”

MISHA KACHMAN

Marie Antoinette

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On another occasion, he hid a wrestling ring above the thrust. Shalwitz recalls that when doing The Elaborate Entrance Of Chad Deity, about the professional wrestling world, director John Vreeke and Kachman wanted to hide the ring until the second act. There is not much height over the thrust at Woolly, but that didn’t stop Kachman from disguising the ring above it. “The reveal at the top of the second act was a dazzling five-minute show-stopping event as they brought the ring in,” says Shalwitz. Kachman designed Gruesome Playground Injuries for Vreeke at Woolly in 2010. The two-hander, with eight or nine scenes in the life of a couple, moves back and forth in time and takes place in many locations. “Misha and John were trying to find a container to give the whole thing shape and were inclined to do it in the round. They finally set the whole thing in the location of the final scene, a hockey ring. [They organized the play] that jumped around in space and time around one scene. Throughout the show, various furniture came out, but when everything was cleared away for the final scene, you understood the space you’d been in all along. It was an insightful, dramaturgical idea that didn’t come from the script, but gave it greater impact,” says Shalwitz. “It’s a dialogue from beginning to end,” says director Derek Goldman. “His role isn’t merely ‘set designer’ but total collaborator. I share with him all the questions about the script, casting, and other design elements.”

MISHA KACHMAN

The Originalist

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Goldman says this approach, natural for Kachman, is rare among American designers “because of the pragmatics of how the industry works. You might only get a couple of meetings with the full production team so it gets carved up into boilerplate roles. Misha as an artist defies those easy categories.” Lighting designer Colin K. Bills, who often designs lights at the Woolly, finds Kachman “incredibly diplomatic, but he has never lied to somebody or been a ‘yes’ man. He lets collaborators know he really likes something, and when he doesn’t, he doesn’t beat around the bush.”

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MISHA KACHMAN

Kachman designed a very simple set—a curtain and a deck—for The Originalist.

Stupid F*king Bird

LET THEM EAT SCENERY

Misha Kachman hates scenery. When he says something feels like scenery, that means he finds it superfluous—decoration instead of design. “That is something I absolutely don’t do,” says the designer who always asks: “Do you really need this?”

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MISHA KACHMAN

Goldman concurs. “I can always count on Misha for a true opinion, with no couching or apology, whether it’s about scenery or something else we are struggling with as a team,” says Goldman. “If he doesn’t know, he’ll just say that.”

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MISHA KACHMAN

Venus In Fur

“He gets to the essential core of a piece,” says Goldman. “He has little interest in things that are only there because someone said they’re supposed to be there.” Shalwitz says Kachman can create a literal location when required. “I’ve seen him do that and very well, but it’s not his go-to place.” Yet, Kachman doesn’t think of himself as a minimalist. “Sometimes you need to fill the entire stage from side to side so it bursts at the seams,” he 118 118

says. “You can’t stop halfway.” In fact, Kachman says he is not an anything. He doesn’t have an aesthetic; he doesn’t want to be boxed in by a preference but to draw from a large toolbox as needed. He prefers designers who are unpredictable to one who might have a penchant for portals, another for boxes, a third for wooden planking. “I feel very strongly you have to be able to apply any tools that are out there to tell the story,” he says.

“Our art requires absolute complete freedom and f luency and in choosing any visual language that applies,” Kachman adds, recalling Ivo van Hove’s Lincoln Center production of A View From The Bridge. “What he does is take a classic kitchen sink play, and he strips everything off it and makes it relevant and compelling. There is not a single front light until the curtain call. It’s not a gimmick, not a shtick. The director, who is also a designer, chose the right tools to tell the story.”

MISHA KACHMAN

Marie Antoinette

“I’m not saying hide behind the text,” adds K a c h m a n , w ho a l s o eschews designs that tell the audience what to think about a play. “You look at the set, and you know what the play is about, not just where it takes place or what the mood is.” Instead, he wants audiences to experience the beauty of unpredictability, something he achieves by playing with expectations. “The audience thinks they know what they are looking at but don’t [really] know.”

Goldman says working with Kachman involves a process of finding a core idea and cutting away, even in some cases cutting things the playwright seems to call for and most people have in a production. A simple, spare world is arrived at with great care. “He gets to less by considering more.” A wall is a metaphor in Falling Out Of Time, a production Goldman adapted and directed at Theatre J, a theatre housed in a small auditorium in a Jewish Community Center in

DC. “We considered and tried on for size all kinds of ways of approaching the story scenically, at one point looking at having a huge wall.” Because they wanted to create a communal event, they emptied rows of the audience so actors could move between spectators, an idea they wouldn’t have reached if they hadn’t come up against a wall first. For the Center Stage production of Stones In His Pocket, which takes place on a movie set in rural Ireland, “we went through 2016 APRIL \\\ 119

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MISHA KACHMAN

Fever/Dream

ideas of cameras and trucks and porta-potties to reach a set that highlights the imposition of a film crew on natural beauty without featuring any of these as primary elements.” Kachman designed The Originalist, a one-man show about Antonin Scalia, at the Arena Stage’s small second stage. The set was simple—a curtain 120 120

and a deck—“but it turned out to be a very important project for me. What made it remarkable was how the design worked with the [idiosyncratic and interesting] space.” Fever/Dream, a modern adaptation of Calderón’s Life Is A Dream, was his first show at Woolly, his introduction to the 248seat theatre. “It was the

first show where I had the resources to do exactly what I wanted to do.” Instead of setting the action in a dungeon, playwright Sheila Callaghan set it in the basement of a skyscraper, where government service calls are answered. “This was an exercise in playing with scale and perspective,” he recalls, noting that people thought the set

MISHA KACHMAN

Fever/Dream

ANDREW F. GRIFFIN

was huge, even though it wasn’t. Bills says Kachman put the audience right on top of the violence in Oedipus El Ray, which is set in Los Angeles. “It gets into prison culture and racism and life in the barrio. Sometimes a set has to be ugly because the world of the play is ugly,” Bills says. “Misha is incredibly good at showing

something ugly that is also compositionally pleasing. He never puts beauty over what is emotionally resonant.” Kachman says his simple design for Goldman’s Theatre J production of Our Class, a three-hour holocaust epic set in a shtetl in Poland in 1941, is one of his favorites. The first four-fifths of the play are

direct-address, a compelling narration of a massacre after the Germans invaded, but it wasn’t the Germans who murdered, burning some people alive, throwing others down wells. It was local Catholics who exterminated their Jewish neighbors. For this, Kachman created a deck made of boards, weathered siding of different colors,

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MISHA KACHMAN

Our Class

with touches of cobblestone between them. “Jews were made to clean the cobblestone with toothbrushes before being killed,” he explains. “I’m absolutely convinced that I nailed it.” Shalwitz says Kachman looks at the event of the play and the relationship between the audience and actors and has reconfigured the Woolly space for different designs. He’s had audiences walk into the space from different doors—once from backstage—whatever supports the theat122

rical event. He is driven, says Shalwitz by “a guiding idea,” something he attributes in part to his background in Russian theatre.

SERIOUS, WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR

“Misha is a serious artist who doesn’t take himself seriously,” says Goldman, explaining that the designer “takes what we do really seriously but also with a healthy impatience for pretentiousness and compromise and short cuts. We’re so accustomed to certain

degrees of compromise, we don’t even notice it, but Misha always reminds me of the power of working where the art comes first. Nothing is precious. He doesn’t cling to an idea that isn’t serving anybody.” Bills concurs, “Misha has pushed against the traditional American processes in theatre and approaches a design with humor and without reverence.” Adds Goldman, “We laugh a lot, even though we work on plays that engage the darker parts of life.”

MISHA KACHMAN

Our Class

JENNIFER MAISELOFF 2016 APRIL \\\ 123

“I refuse to become a victim of bad LED lighting”

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TECH ///

WH AT ’S TRENDING

What’s Trending

LEDs /// BY ELLEN L A MPER T-GRE A U X

ess than a decade ago, lighting designers were still in denial about the proclaimed success of the LED as a credible lighting source. Nobody was ready to give up tungsten or other cherished kinds of lamps. Well, that little “light emitting diode” has come a long way, baby, and today there are hundreds, if not thousands, of reliable products that have taken the LED out of the shadows and into the limelight. Three leading lighting designers—Herrick Goldman, Lisa Passamonte Green, and Steven Rosen—based across the United States and working on a wide variety of projects, fill us in on their love affair with LEDs, now that the inevitable is upon us. 2016 APRIL \\\ 125

TECH ///

WH AT ’S TRENDING

HERRICK GOLDMAN Principal Lighting Designer HG Lighting Design

The latest trend in LEDs that I have seen is the shrinking of the form factor. Now that manufacturers have leapt over the brightness and color issues, they are miniaturizing everything. Elation [Professional] has the ACL 360 that’s basically a super Magic 8-Ball with continuous rotation. TMB has the Solaris Mozart that fits in your hand and can affix

almost anywhere. I’m currently entranced by the flexibility and overall usefulness of the GLP X4 Atom RGBW. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s about the size of a PAR20 or basically a large Birdie. This little fixture is really bright, using the same chip as GLP’s other X4 products. The color mix and tonality are great for LEDs, but I still wouldn’t depend upon it for unsupported face light. I’m not sold on most LEDs for face light; the subtlety of color mixing is still not yet what I’d want, excluding much of the current crop of LED ellipsoidals from ETC and Elation, and in some cases, the PARs like the ETC Selador range. The Atom is more http://hglightingdesign.com

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useful as an effect light or scenery highlighting tool, rather than primary face lighting. The really cool thing is it has a built-in zoom that goes from 3.5° to 34°, so basically an ACL pinspot and a wash all in one. The intensity tails off considerably as the zoom increases; but why quibble with physics? This fixture is IP65-rated, and I’ve already specified it for an upcoming outdoor permanent install. Other handy things about the Atom are the clever interlocking system that lets multiple Atoms join together in unique configurations. This will be very cool for audience-facing (blinding) scenic elements.

GLP X4 Atom

So basically you can use several Atoms as interlocking (think Lego) building blocks and then zoom them down to a very narrow, mini ACL look or go wide for a subtle wash from your new structure. GLP also has a batten of the same LEDs and optics to make a modern DHA light curtain effect (the GLP impression X4 Bar 10 and 20). The Atom will also come in handy as individual footlight specials or to hide a source in nooks and crannies on scenery. They are powered off of the ubiquitous 4-pin XLR and a remote power supply unit that drives up to 12 Atoms. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to want to use these by the handful. Betcha canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t eat just one!

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LISA PASSAMONTE GREEN CEO and Principal-In-Charge Visual Terrain

With Visual Terrain’s wide diversity of projects, I am personally a big fan of fixture manufacturers who pay attention to the quality and the consistency of their LEDs across product lines, as well as paying attention to the maintenance and sustainability side of their LED fixtures. This is especially true for our permanent installations, such as theme park attractions, amphitheatres, museum exhibits, iconic façades, and every-

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thing in between. I have a special affinity right now for both Gantom Lighting & Controls’ LED fixtures and SGM’s LED moving heads. Gantom’s ultra-compact theatrical projectors, miniature pinspots, small spotlights, and floodlight fixtures help us solve the problem of getting theatrical lighting into tight, space-constrained areas. We turn to these fixtures especially when we simply can’t fit a traditional theatrical fixture or mini-version of the same theatrical fixture within the actual space, due to extremely low ceilings, ride envelope restrictions, and mechanical and/or plumbing conflicts in the ceiling, and we still want a theatrical lighting approach in the space. To date, we have used them in theme park

attractions worldwide, museum pre-show theatrical experiences, signage and artifact illumination, haunted houses, high-end residential projects, and VIP rooms and lounges. Ranging from 1W to 4W and running on 12VDC, the products have a variety of control protocols, dimming options, beam spreads, color temperatures, and single-color, dynamic white, and RGBW LED options, which means we can typically find a solution in their product range that helps us realize our designs no matter how small or tight the space is for mounting the fixtures. Most fixtures are also IP65, which means we can safely use them indoors or outdoors. www.visualterrain.net

SGM G-Spot

From one extreme to the other: My other new favorites are the SGM G-Profile and G-Spot LED moving heads. Both fixtures have RGBY LED light sources and are IP65rated to be water-, sand-, and dirt-proof. SGM uses a sealed interior chamber for the optics, gobo, and light source, which means there is no negative impact from an accumulation of dust. The G-Spot has an output of 17,000 lumens, variable color temperature range from 2,000K to 10,000K, dual rotatable gobo wheels each with five indexable gobos plus open, two effects wheels, high-speed strobe effect, iris from 1 to 100%, 540째 pan and 270째 tilt, electronic dimming, and DMX control protocol. The G-Profile also has an output of 17,000 lumens, variable color temperature range from 2,000K to 10,000K, four-facet prism, 0 to 100% variable frost, single rotatable gobo wheel with five indexable gobos plus open, iris from 1 to 100%, high-speed strobe effect, rotatable framing modules, one effects wheel with variable speed and direction, continuous rotation, four individually adjustable and controllable shutter blades, 540째 pan and 270째 tilt, electronic dimming, and DMX control protocol. We have completed multiple tests and mock-ups for some upcoming projects and most recently specified these fixtures for a world heritage sound and light show and amphitheatre in the Middle East.

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STEVEN ROSEN FIALD, President & Creative Director, Available Light idly dim down to and up from zero intensity, color consistency (both over the life of a single luminaire and from luminaire to luminaire), longevity of product, which can focus on expert thermal management, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It is remarkable to me how, in a very few, short years, our design studio has gone from specifying a multiplicity of light sources to virtually one: LEDs. Our team of designers remains vigilant in identifying how well LED-driven products successfully deliver light. Metrics in our stable of concerns include delivering excellent color-rendering, flicker-free performance (up and down the dimming range), smooth (i.e. no stepping) dimming curve, ability to flu130

The work we do at Available Light is quite diverse: From museum exhibition lighting to architectural interiors to touring theatrical lighting rigs for trade show booths, we are exposed to a wide diversity of gear designed to fulfill a great many challenging lighting scenarios. But when it comes to theatrical lighting hardware, one of my personal favorite luminaires is the Harman Martin Professional MAC Aura. This little guy is a beast: bright (almost 4,000 lumens/144,000 CBCP at

11°), colorful (RGBW), light (12lbs.), flexible (11°58° zoom), fast (zippy pan and tilt), and entertaining (via the “eye candy” effects feature). And, at 230W, it is efficient. But wattage is only half the story; there is a gigantic difference between an LED moving light and its legacy short arc source ancestors. When you dim an LED fixture to either a low intensity or to off, power consumption parallels design choices. With arc sources that dim and douse mechanically, power consumption is never reduced, never mind that the arc lamp is also slowly burning out while no useful light is visible onstage! The electric meter dial just continues to spin and spin. To me, this gigantic waste of energy borders on criminal activity.

Harman Martin Professional MAC Aura

A recent son et lumière show attracted conference attendees to the RSA booth/ stand. The music selection was built on a 90-second, driving music track; it was like Kodo Drummers meets Paramore. Our task was to visualize this piece of music through our medium: light. Like the endless and repetitive cycle of waves crashing on the beach, the background electronic stream provided us with the opportunity to pulsate the RSA color palette rhythmi-

cally through a sculptural, fabricwrapped structure. This cueing procession of color, texture, movement, and dynamic beam shaping was sympathetic to both the musical theme and the deep, powerful drum hits that were like a character in this musical fable. The scanning abstract imagery was dense and dynamic; modulations of scale, intensity, and focus, all in sync with the music, were visually compelling and emotionally exciting. The Aura allowed us to dynamically fill the fabric vessels with light, from choreographed scanning spots to full flood washes, that wholly illuminated the sculpture. The color washes were critical to making this lighting event a delight for all who attended. Special thanks go out to project manager/co-designer Bill Kadra, programmer Ben Roy, production electrician Mark Gilmore, and our client, Catalyst Exhibits. Watch RSA booth’s lightshow at RSA Trade Show www.availablelight.com

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ANDRÉ-OLIVIER LYRA

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Symphonie Hivernale

EXCELLENCE AWARDS VOTING IS OPEN /// BY MARIAN SANDBERG

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MIKKI KUNTTU

oting for the ninth annual Excellence In Live Design Awards is now open at livedesignonline.com, with nominations for outstanding achievement in design for projects completed between January and December 2015. Readers can vote once in each category: Architainment, Concerts, Corporate Events, Live For Broadcast, Venues (Club or Lounge), and Venues (Theatre or Performance). All winners will be fully featured in the June edition of Live Design and be honored in New York on Monday, June 13, alongside recipients of Products of the Year awards and honorees for Excellence in Design Achievement: Abe Jacob, Natasha Katz, Beowulf Boritt, Laura Frank, Full Flood (Robert Dickinson and Robert Barnhart), and Seven Design Works (LeRoy Bennett, Cory FitzGerald, and Tobias Rylander).

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Swan Lake

Vote for Excellence in Live Design Awards

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LEE CHERRY

SHANIA TWAIN ROCK THIS COUNTRY FAREWELL TOUR

RUKES

OMNIA NIGHTCLUB KINETIC CHANDELIER

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ELIAS DJEMIL

Champions! 100th Anniversary of the International Olympic Committeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Presence in Lausanne

Winter Palace on Fifth

4th FAI World Air Games (WAG) 2015 Opening Ceremony

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The Jack Chow Building

United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development

Education First 50th Anniversary Gala

U2 iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE 2015 Tour

STUFISH ENTERTAINMENT ARCHITECTS

ALEX ANDRUCHELBA

iMapp Bucharest 2015

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ADAM KAPLAN, ASK MEDIA PRODUCTIONS

Circuit Grounds Stage at Electric Daisy Carnival 2015

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Toronto Sign at PanAm Games 2015

MGM Macau

OMNI NIGHTCLUB TAIPEI

Omni Nightclub in Taipei

Dai Show Theatre

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LEE CHERRY

ADELE LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY

SPIRIT OF EXPLORATION

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JOHAN PERSSON

Wolf Hall, Parts One and Two on Broadway

BRAD DUNS

Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Show

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The Gift Of Christmas 2015

Taylor Swift 1989 Tour

ELIAS DJEMIL

The Royal Theatre Aboard Anthem Of The Seas

IAA International Motor Show – AUDI AG

CLAUDE DUFRESNE

Elevation Worship “Here As In Heaven” Live Album Recording 2015

VeeamON 2015 DREW BOSARGE, DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY, MIG

GABRIEL RANCOURT

Videotron Center Opening Festivities

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JAY BLAKESBERG

Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of The Grateful Dead

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J. Cole’s Forest Hills Drive Tour

CLAUDE DUFRESNE

2015 Quebec National Day

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S TA FF

DAVID JOHNSON Managing Director

JOANNE ZOLA Sales Manager

BEV WALTER Customer Service

MARIAN SANDBERG Content Director

DENISE WALDE Ad Operations Specialist, Production

YANNIS SPANOUDIS Art Director

ELLEN LAMPERT-GREAUX Creative Director

STELLA SPIEGEL Audience Development Manager

MEGHAN PERKINS Content Producer

LAURA WELDON Digital Project Manager

DOUGLAS LUGO Show Manager

KELLY TURNER Sales Manager

JOHN ANDERSON Attendee Services Manager

SUZANNE GREGORY Operations Manager

BETH WEINSTEIN Marketing Manager

JAESON LOKATYS Marketing Designer

KEN BAIRD Sales Manager

JESSI CYBULSKI Operations Manager

PiKA TABLET Digital Implementation

Live Design magazine is part of the Live Design franchise that also includes LDI, The Live Design Master Classes, all providing designers and technicians an integrated, multi-platform approach to staying informed, increasing visibility, and interacting with peers.

Members of: David Kieselstein, Chief Executive Officer Nicola Allais, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Sandy Voss, President, Penton Exhibitions & COO, Lifestyle ©2016 by Penton Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in USA. Editorial and advertising offices: Live Design, 1166 Avenue of the Americas, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10036-2708; phone: 212•204•4266, fax: 212•204•1823, Web: www.livedesignonline.com The opinions and viewpoints of the contributing writers are not necessarily those of Live Design or Penton Media, Inc. Neither Live Design nor Penton Media, Inc., are liable for any claim by a reader as a result of their use of a product as instructed by a contributing writer.