Live Design Magazine - June 2016 by Live Design Magazine By Penton Media Inc.

ENVISION I BUILD I TECH I GO

JUNE 2016

S e i r a n o i s i v o Eur

ONTEST C G N O S N O I ROVIS U E F O S K O O THE MANY L FULLY COMMITTED AND BRIGHT STAR ON BROADWAY • BEACH HOUSE’S UNCONVENTIONAL TOUR SEEING MANY VERSIONS OF RED • A PEEK AT VIVID SYDNEY • TALKING WITH NORMAN COATES THE JUDAS KISS AT BAM • EXCELLENCE IN LIVE DESIGN AWARDS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ///

M AY 2 0 1 6 /

GO ///

5 QUESTIONS

NORMAN COATES, DIRECTOR OF LIGHTING, UNCSA /// B Y M E G H A N P E R K I N S ENVISION ///

BELLS ARE RINGING

DEREK MCLANE DESIGNS THE SET FOR FULLY COMMITTED ON BROADWAY /// B Y E L L E N L A M P E R T- G R E A U X

FEATURE ///

IN PRAISE OF PSEs

/// B Y J O H N L E O N A R D BUILD///

SEEING RED

PAINTING THE STAGE FOR RED (OR NOT) IN VARIOUS PRODUCTIONS /// B Y D A V I N A P O L E O N

THE NINTH ANNUAL EXCELLENCE IN LIVE DESIGN AWARDS

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

COVER STORY ///

Dream Pop Flower Power Beach House Tours A Whole New Concept

/// B Y S T E V E N B A T T A G L I A

Vision Quest

Eurovision Song Contest Returns To Sweden

Star Light, Star Bright

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

FEATURES ///

Walk On The Wilde Side

Rick Fisher And Dale Ferguson Design David Hareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Play, The Judas Kiss

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

Bright Star Shines On Broadway.

/// B Y S T E V E N B A T T A G L I A

Many Lights, Many Nights

Mandylights Illuminates Five Installations At Vivid Sydney 2016

/// B Y M E G H A N P E R K I N S

A ND K ATINK A A LLENDER

ED STEVENS

GO ///

5 QUESTIONS

5Qs Norman Coates

Director Of Lighting, UNCSA

/// By Meghan Perkins

orman Coates first joined the faculty at University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) more than 25 years ago and has since become the director of lighting in the School of Design and Production. Prior to his days as a professor, Coates gained experience as a lighting designer, on and off Broadway, with his Broadway credits including The News and Prince Of Central Park. Coates continues to balance teaching with his professional career. His work appears in regional theatres such as Triad Stage and PlayMakers Repertory, and opera companies including Opera Omaha, Fort Worth Opera, Piedmont Opera Theatre, and more. In 2008, Coates founded the Winston-Salem Light Project (WSLP), giving students the opportunity to create outdoor art installations open to the enjoyment of the public. Live Design caught up with Coates about WSLPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2016 project Aluvio, which illuminated a forgotten tunnel under Cherry Street in Winston-Salem, NC, nightly from April 12 to 16. Coates will also be the moderator for LDIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pixel & Projection Mapping Summit in Las Vegas on October 19-20, 2016. Register for LDI

JUNE 2016 \\\

GO ///

5 QUESTIONS

ell us about the birth and mission of the Winston-Salem Light Project. What first inspired WSLP? It was really inspired by something I just accidentally ran into in Florence, Italy. I was on the other side of the Arno River at the Piazza San Spirito, and I stopped in a café. In that piazza, there is an unadorned church, the Basilica San Spirito; it never got the marble façade to it. But in this café, there were hundreds of postcards and images of a project that a fellow named Mario Mariotti had done, using old PANI projectors during a festival. He had all the artists create pieces that were projected onto this façade. That sparked my interest in dealing with lighting or manipulating urban spaces, using either lighting or projection. So that was where the desire started. Then, just by chance, a number of years later, potential donors, Suzanne and Gilbert Matthews, came to the school and wanted to do something with lighting because they owned Lucifer Lighting. I kept trying to get equipment, and what eventually came around was that they wanted to fund a project like lighting buildings. So we started with the first one, which was the Millennium Center in 2008. That was a mix of architectural lighting and also projection on the stairwells on the ends of the building. That’s how it all got started. The real intention is to bring to the students something that is outside a normal theatrical education. I wanted to find a project that took them away from the script, away from other collaborators, and allowed them to be original artists that got to do projects on their own and based upon the idea of changing the urban environment and making people see the urban environment differently and perhaps in ways they’ve never seen, which we’ve been pretty successful at.

With this particular senior class, we batted around a lot of ideas, and the only thing they could narrow down was that they wanted the project to involve music and be interactive so if someone moved then the pitch and/or the lights changed. We talked about a thousand ideas, but we had no really good place we could think of at first. I happened to be wandering around downtown with another group, and I ran across this place that I didn’t know existed: this tunnel underneath Cherry Street that led out to this unfamiliar park. It is sort of this hidden spot. It had been an early ‘70s urban renovation project, and it just got lost after that. So I came back to them with that idea, and we talked about what it would be like to use a tunnel. We also had a composer who wanted to work with us. So, we eventually got to the idea that we could make the light flow out of the tunnel just like water would flow down a river like in the Mississippi. And all that light, art, and music would pour out and form what we were calling a new impression of the city, like when the geological process of alluvium creates new land.

ED STEVENS

hat inspired the design concept of Aluvio?

WSLP’s Terra Luna, 2015 JUNE 2016 \\\ 7

GO ///

5 QUESTIONS

WSLP’s Aluvio, 2016

WSLP’s Lumanotus, 2012 8

hat were the challenges in bringing that project to life?

We had to work with a composer so we had started with music ideas, and originally, he was going to make a composition with two didgeridoos and a computer. As we got closer to the project, he lost his didgeridoo players, so it became solely a composition with computers. That shifted the student’s ideas a little bit. The other thing is we tried to build part of the project and then use extensive equipment for part of the project. So we were actually using [Barco] VersaTubes that were donated to the school by 4Wall Entertainment six years ago. We decided to use those inside the tunnel and allow the light and color to flow from one end of the tunnel and out into the open park. Once we hit the open park, we had walls to deal with and also a sense of overhead so that we could get attention from the street. We were going to use all kinds of standard theatrical wash fixtures to do the walls, but we wound up continuing the VersaTubes idea down the walls, which is about a 100’ of wall to light after 70’ of tunnel. So we had 170’ of linear space to light. Then overhead, one of the students, Ryan O’Mara, designed and built posts and overhangs where we used these Vivid RGB Lighting Orb:100s that are basically about 4.5’’ frosted globes. So we wound up with a really interesting control problem. With the VersaTubes, basically we were sending a video file to them, but we couldn’t do that with the orbs. We had to break control into two parts: one being basically film and the other being pixels. We really spent an enormous amount of time trying to work out how to make it all run continuously so that, if the tunnel started in blue and then slowly changed from blue to cyan, it did it very slowly from one end all the way to the other end. With the VersaTubes, it was kind of easy making video files and running them as gradient films, but we had to somehow integrate these other lights, which also included Super Bright RGB LED tape on the railing. JUNE 2016 \\\

GO ///

5 QUESTIONS

ow do you balance running a department with being a designer? Do you often involve your students in your work? I do when I can. If I’m doing local work with either Triad Stage or Piedmont Opera Theatre, I try to get them involved in the work in some way. Part of the issue with getting them involved during school is that they’re so busy. We’ve supported close to 30 different kinds of productions at school this year, and the students do all that work, so finding a student who is free and actually ready to assist me is sometimes a real challenge because they may be in the midst of designing a big show for themselves as part of their classwork. It is difficult.

The Flying Dutchman

WSLP’s Aluvio, 2016

WSLP’s Aluvio, 2016 The Glass Menagerie at Triad Stage

Madame Butterfly at Piedmont Opera Theatre

GO ///

5 QUESTIONS

hat do you look for in an incoming student? And what advice do you have for young lighting designers? It is tough and always changing or at least it feels that way to me. First of all, you actually have to have an interest in theatre, not just lighting design. While lighting design is a wonderful and fabulous thing, it is part of a bigger art form. I try to find students who have at least a sense of the big picture of telling a story, and that doesn’t matter whether it is dance or opera or drama or musical comedy. In the end, you’re telling the story, and you’re telling it with light. So I try and just see if they’re interested in the story part as opposed to just the gear. Now that doesn’t mean that someone would be disqualified for that, as we have both a designer and a technician track, but even the technicians need to have the joy of light and performance, which falls into all those categories. After that, it really is wide as to the range of skill sets: passion for theatre, passion for lighting design, willingness to put in the hard hours of work to develop craft. Ninetyfive percent of what a lighting designer does are things that lead to that 5% of talent and inspiration that make the brilliant design. Another thing that I look for, or that we look for is somebody who actually likes to read. The last thing, which is pretty much all of entertainment I think, is being able to work with others.

WSLPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Aluvio, 2016

www.claypaky.it TAP HERE TO VISIT THE WEBSITE

Harmony needs balance, silence, and quality of light.

SCENIUS The sound of light

www.claypaky.it

Music spreads into the surrounding silence, and a harmonious light radiates into the darkness of the scene. In a play on perfect symmetries, light too varies its tones. Balanced intensities, soft shades, vivid colors, perfect white, accurate wash, fancy shapes... Listen: this is the Scenius, the harmonious sound of light.

A.C.T Lighting, Inc. is the exclusive Clay Paky distributor for U.S. and Canada

Los Angeles A.C.T Lighting, Inc.

New York A.C.T Lighting East, Inc.

Toronto A.C.T Lighting Canada, Inc.

2313 N Valley Street Burbank, CA 91505 Phone: 818 707-0884 Fax: 818 707-0512 www.actlighting.com

122 John Street Hackensack, NJ 07601 Phone: 201 996-0884 Fax: 201 996-0811 www.actlighting.com

3250 Ridgeway Drive, Unit 14 Mississauga, ON L5L 5Y6 Phone: 416 907 6770 Fax: 416 628 8406 www.actlighting.com

GO ///

F U L LY COMMIT TED

Bells

Are Ri#ngin#g DEREK MCLANE DESIGNS THE SET FOR FULLY COMMITTED ON BROADWAY

MONIQUE CARBONI, MCLANE STUDIO

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

JUNE 2016 \\\

one-set show unfurling in a basement office with a frenzied actor in a one-man tourde-force racing around his desk: That sets the stage for Fully Committed, with sets by Tony Award-winning scenic designer Derek McLane and starring Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Sam, the harried reservation clerk in an upscale restaurant where seats are as scarce as hensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; teeth.

JUNE 2016 \\\

MONIQUE CARBONI, MCLANE STUDIO

The set features exposed piping and a wall of 903 wine bottles of different shapes and colors.

The play features a ballet of telephones from the cell phone to the reservations phone to the red phone hotline to the chef.

A RCUS

EXCEPT… One of the main set elements is a tornado of 204 brown restaurant chairs, tumbling from the grid toward the stage. McLane sourced them at a restaurant supply store and attached them together with lots of airplane cable holding them up. So while erstwhile diners can’t book a seat, the set is awhirl with them, as they create a metaphor for the play: trying to get a seat at this restaurant. “I like that the tornado of chairs feels sculptural and has whimsy to it,” says McLane. When the curtain goes up, the set is greeted with a round of applause. “It’s quite tall and creates a surprising image with the tornado of chairs, and the pre-show music has all the phones ringing that goes into jazz with phones and a hum of activity,” notes McLane. “It has this madcap, kooky quality, and then the curtain goes up, and you see this crazy concoction on stage. It all seems to go together.” 20

MONIQUE CARBONI, MCLANE STUDIO

JO A N M

JOAN MARCUS

McLane approached this one-set show the way he would approach anything else. “What is the story the director and I want to tell?” he asks. In this case, it is the story of two different worlds: the private grungy office where Sam works and the fancy world of the restaurant upstairs with its wall of wine and a difficult chef. “I wanted to make the basement not depressing, but something both charming and hilarious, and at the same time, large enough to command a Broadway stage,” McLane explains. “The office is modeled on an old reservation room at the Union Square Cafe. I looked at their reservation room from when they first opened; it had a very low ceiling with a lot of pipes.” The pipe concept was transferred to the set, with beleaguered Sam having to put his cell phone on the corner of the pipes to get service in the basement, as his dad calls from South Bend, and his fellow actor friends call about auditions and call-backs at Lincoln Center. Above all this is an imposing wall of wine: 903 wine bottles of different shapes slotted into a steel frame upstage that measures 30’ high by 34’3’’ wide, built by Proof Produc-

JUNE 2016 \\\

MONIQUE CARBONI, MCLANE STUDIO

tions in Philadelphia. “I drank a lot of wine at a lot of expensive restaurants to get the feel of that,” McLane confesses. “The bottles are filled with colored water, but we had a vintner cork and cap them so they look realistic.” McLane’s team made approximately 100 different wine labels, so they don’t repeat too often. His associate Erica Hemminger led the design for those. “You can’t really see the difference, but you could tell if they were all the same,” he says. “It looks better with more different labels, different colors of wine, and different bottle styles.” Back in the basement, the action is a ballet of telephones: the cell phone, the reservations phone, which has at least four lines ringing at all times, the in-house phone to call upstairs, and the red phone that is the hotline to and from the chef. “Jesse worked it out with the director, with phones on the desk and the red phone on the wall, in a one-week workshop I was able to see,” explains McLane. “Then we

JUNE 2016 \\\

MONIQUE CARBONI, MCLANE STUDIO

worked out where the phones needed to be on the set and also worked out how he would move about in the space during that workshop. There are two other small desks in the basement, as it’s meant to be an office for three, but the other people aren’t there that day so Sam is alone. The day’s events allow Sam to start developing a sense of empowerment, as his agent is telling him to do, and as he runs up the stairs at the end, one hopes he is leaving for good. Fully Committed also provides the audience with a glimpse at

what goes on in the rarified restaurant world where power and influence are wielded to try and get a seat. “This set is a lighting designer’s dream,” says lighting designer Ben Stanton. “The chair sculpture is this amazing floating sculptural piece that can be lit in many different ways. We opted mostly for side-lighting and uplighting, because we didn’t want any unintentional light to hit the playing space.” The creative team also experimented with many different treatments before settling on the approach.

Booms Lighting Plot 0

4 4

WALL LED HI

1'-9"

851

594

593

592

591

590

589

588

CF48

699

700

4'-0"

1'-9"

294

859

295

3'-1"

587

586

585

584

583

582

581

WALL LED HI

598

597

WALL LED LO

LEG LED SL

499

500

296

303

SURROUND

696

695

694

693

692

691

690

689

688

687

686

685

684

683

682

681

698

697

WALL LED LO

KEY TO INSTRUMENTATION: ETC S4 05º ERS 750W

CF48

867

ETC S4 10º ERS 750W ETC S4 14º ERS 750W

4'-0"

0a 0b

302

488

875

10'-1"

24'-1"

ETC S4 26º ERS 750W

26'-0"

CF48

338

26'-1"

4'-8"

337

4'-8"

336

15 595

FIBER-OPTIC "STAR" EFFECT

87 2'-11" 2

1'-9"

90 1'-9"

2 91 1'-9" 1'-9"

473

1'-9"

7'-6"

366

335

4'-8"

474

2'-11"

480

16 596

BOTTLES

1'-9"

367

2 64

1'-9" 3

1'-9"

331

70 3

1'-9"

471

1'-9"

1'-9" 472

7'-6"

364

11'-0"

365

2'-11"

21'-1"

2 600

ETC S4 19º ERS 750W

ETC S4 36º ERS 750W ETC 36º LUSTR2 171W ETC S4 50º ERS 750W

CF48 E

4'-0"

883

1'-9"

323

324

2 3

ETC S4 70º ERS 750W ETC S4 90º ERS 750W ETC S4 WFL PAR 575W

CF72

749

6'-2"

CF72

737

CF72

725

713

PIN SPOT 75W

G-ROW

701

MINI-TEN WATTAGE AS PER HOOKUP

5'-6"

1'-9"

325

1'-9"

CF72

F 761

BIRDIE NSP 150W

321

317

CF72

G-ROW

443

2'-8"

4'-6"

1'-9"

215

1'-10"

214 234

235

1'-9" 441

PERF

1'-9"

313

3 4'-6"

1'-9"

213

212

1'-10"

232

233

2'-8"

4'-6"

1'-9"

202

203

1'-10"

222

223

2'-8"

1'-9"

PERF

1'-9"

308 316

1'-9"

306

315

1'-9"

311

319

4'-6"

1'-9"

204

205

1'-10"

224

305

4'-6" 4

2'-8"

442

444

PERF

1'-9"

206

226

21'-1"

1 599

LEG LED SR

1a 2

1'-9" 301

320

326

304 1'-9"

329

PERF

1'-9"

4'-6" 328

490 833

6'-2"

5'-6"

14'-0"

14'-0" 5

490 D

825

10'-1"

CF48

4'-0"

24'-1"

CF48

1'-9"

2'-11"

333

332

334

1'-9"

801

1'-9" 489

293 292

CF48 B

809

4'-0"

1'-9" 2a

291

3'-1" 489

CF48 C

817

4'-0"

CF48

26'-1"

26'-0"

4'-0"

CF48

DS US

US DS

4'-0"

488

Deck Lighting Plot

CF48

1'-9"

CF72

327

1'-9"

322

310

1'-9"

314

1'-9"

COLORFORCE 48 - 480W

COLORFORCE 72 - 720W

0,0

#5 BM SL

#4 BM SL

#3 BM SL

#2 BM SL

#1B BM SL

#1A BM SL

TORM SL

CL: 21'-2" | FP: +28'-7"

CL: 26'-8" | FP: +25'-3"

CL: 26'-8" | FP: +17'-3"

CL: 28'-4" | FP: +9'-5"

CL: 27'-7" | FP: +3'-11"

CL: 26'-6" | FP: +1'-7"

EXISTING PIPE

0,0

TORM SR

#1A BM SR

#1B BM SR

#2 BM SR

#3 BM SR

#4 BM SR

#5 BM SR

EXISTING PIPE

CL: 26'-6" | FP: +1'-7"

CL: 27'-7" | FP: +3'-11"

CL: 28'-4" | FP: +9'-5"

CL: 26'-8" | FP: +17'-3"

CL: 26'-8" | FP: +25'-3"

CL: 21'-2" | FP: +28'-7"

AUTOYOKE 10º 750W

AUTOYOKE 14º 750W

PERF

CHANNEL

UNIT

FINAL - AS BUILT

04/25/16

MID-TECH UPDATE

03/30/16

SET ELECTRICS

03/16/16

SHOP PREP

02/28/16

PRELIMINARY

02/22/16

B E N S T A N T O N

L.D. #4121

149 W. 45TH ST. NEW YORK, NY 10036

480

1'-9"

387

477

1'-9"

170

1'-6"

1'-9"

83 14

2'-9"

385

126

1'-9"

163

5'-5"

393

385

ETC S4 70º ERS 750W

5'-5"

1'-9"

307

PROS BM SR

1'-9"

318

2'-9"

1'-9" 18

1'-6"

141 17

384

393

384

DATE:

MAC VIPER PERFORMANCE 1225W

PLATE:

04/25/16

DRAWN: Wb

4'-6"

1'-9"

13 60 14

HANGER SL

144

1'-9"

8'-4"

CL: 26'-6" | FP: +1'-7"

5'-0"

PERF lx

LEGEND:

182

197

DIRECTOR: JASON MOORE SETS: DEREK McLANE ASSOC. LD: WILBURN BONNELL PROD. ELEC: ERIC NORRIS

THE DESIGNER IS UNQUALIFIED TO DETERMINE THE STRUCTURAL OR ELECTRICAL APPROPRIATENESS OF THIS DESIGN, AND WILL NOT ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR IMPROPER ENGINEERING, CONSTRUCTION, HANDLING, OR USE. ALL MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION MUST COMPLY WITH THE MOST STRINGENT APPLICABLE FEDERAL AND LOCAL FIRE, SAFETY, ENERGY, AND ENVIRONMENTAL CODES.

PERF

GENERAL NOTES: > INSTRUMENT SPACING 1'-6" UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. > TRUSS TRIMS TAKEN FROM STAGE FLOOR TO UNDERSIDE OF HANGING PIPE. > BOOM TRIMS TAKEN FROM STAGE FLOOR TO UNDERSIDE OF SIDEARM UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. > PLEASE PROVIDE SPARE CIRCUITS AND DMX AT ALL POSITIONS. > PLEASE PROVIDE SPARE R132, R119, R104 AT FOCUS. > RIG ALL BOOMS TO BE RIGID AND SECURE. > FRONT-END AND GATE ACCESSORIES ARE NOT DRAWN –– SEE HOOKUP FOR ASSIGNMENTS. > CONFIRM PLACEMENT AND HANG OF STAGE AND FOH BOOMS IN SITU WITH LD OR ASSOCIATE PRIOR TO SECURING.

FINAL - AS BUILT

04/25/16

MID-TECH UPDATE

03/30/16

SET ELECTRICS

03/16/16

SHOP PREP

02/28/16

PRELIMINARY

02/22/16

ASSOCIATE LD CONTACT INFO: WILBURN@BONNELLDESIGN.COM CELL: 203.915.5020

F D

B E N S T A N T O N

THE LYCEUM THEATER

917 975 8235 TEL benstanton00@gmail .com www.benstanton.com

L.D. #4121

2'-1"

5'-0"

68 5'-0"

2'-1"

2'-3"

149 W. 45TH ST. NEW YORK, NY 10036

SCALE: 1/2" = 1'-0"

SET LX

DATE:

04/25/16

DRAWN: Wb

1'-3" 1

386

479

109

148

108 404

1'-6"

DECK AND GROUNDROW FIXTURES DRAWN REMOVED FOR CLARITY. SEE SET ELECTRICS PLATE FOR PLACEMENT.

#1A BM SL

5'-0"

CL: 26'-6" | FP: +1'-7"

TORM SR

FLY GALLERY

TORM SL

CL: | PL:

KEY TO INSTRUMENTATION:

HANGER SL

211

1'-6"

201

464

1'-6"

464

461

CF72

CL: 26'-8" | FP: +25'-3"

#4E

487

PERF

431

1'-0" lx

BOX BM SR-FAR

129

169

BOX BM SR-FAR

2'-0"

BOX BM SL-FAR

146

162

142

467

401

402

3 23

382

4 22

383 1'-6"

1'-6"

5 21

392

361

BALC RAIL HI 1'-6"

2'-5"

468

1'-6"

370

2'-1" 1'-6"

17 15

363 463 1'-6"

362

4'-6"

6'-0"

1'-6"

6'-0"

4'-6"

2'-5"

CF72

AUTOYOKE 14º 750W

TRIM: 28'-7"

286

483

3'-6"

25 1'-3"

5 1'-3"

10 1'-3"

29 1'-3"

24 1'-3"

4 1'-3"

1'-3"

28 1'-3"

1'-3"

8" 8"

8 1'-3"

1'-3"

1'-0"

4'-0"

1'-6" 375

483

285

482

284

793

792

358

791

348

790

5'-5" 358

788

787

2'-6"

786

PERF

348

785

1'-6"

3'-7"

20 905 19

481

283

783

782

481

2'-0"

PERF

434

ETC S4 19º ERS 750W ETC S4 26º ERS 750W

#4E

ETC S4 36º ERS 750W

TRIM: 33'-3"

ETC 36º LUSTR2 171W

262 3'-4"

781

ETC S4 50º ERS 750W

3'-0"

1'-6"

274 1'-6"

ETC S4 90º ERS 750W

342

281

4'-0"

#3E

1'-0"

1'-6"

1'-0"

ETC S4 WFL PAR 575W

TRIM: 35'-6"

1'-2"

1'-0"

ETC S4 70º ERS 750W

282 352

2 10

343 423 7"

11"

1'-2"

#3 BM SL

1'-6"

PIN SPOT 75W

CL: 26'-8" | FP: +17'-3"

BIRDIE NSP 150W

1'-0" 6" 1'-2"

275

1'-9"

1'-0"

275 48

4'-4"

1'-6"

1'-6" 372

PERF

1'-9"

357

9 8b

433

7'-10"

#3 OH

784

343 1'-6"

1'-0" 49

PERF

1'-0"

PERF

12 274 3'-0"

1'-9"

#4 BM SR

1'-6"

789

3'-3"

355

481

#4 OH

CL: 26'-8" | FP: +25'-3"

A 501

9'-0"

1'-6"

CF72

B 513

8'-0"

7'-1" 345

CF72

C 525

344 1'-6"

1'-6"

374

347 2

460

MINI-TEN WATTAGE AS PER HOOKUP

371

#2aE

CF48

TRIM: 38'-8"

COLORFORCE 48 - 480W

422

2'-6"

2'-0"

905

16 905

13a

380

2'-0"

W4 W3

2'-0"

52 12a

276

11a

2'-6"

CF72 2'-0"

3'-7"

905

10a

1'-6"

1'-0"

276

2'-6"

1'-6"

905 8

379

905 4

905

356

#1 OH

346

8'-0"

9" 356

9" 346

8'-0"

1'-6"

2'-0"

351

341

905

379

#2 BM SL

COLORFORCE 72 - 720W

CL: 28'-4" | FP: +9'-5"

#2E

AUTOYOKE 10º 750W

TRIM: 35'-6"

AUTOYOKE 14º 750W

1'-6" 356

346

10 8'-4"

9 5'-0"

#1B BM SL

#1 OH

TRIM

CL: 26'-6" | FP: +1'-7"

CL: 27'-7" | FP: +3'-11"

TRIM

273

272

271

41 W2

2'-1"

5'-0"

3 68 5'-0"

2'-1"

2 67

1 5'-0"

TORM SR

TRIM: 28'-7"

PRACTICAL CIRCUIT (DIMMED) WATTAGE AS PER HOOKUP

#1A BM SL CL: 26'-6" | FP: +1'-7"

TORM SL CL: | PL:

LEGEND: 4

PROS BM SR

GENERAL NOTES:

1 231

CHANNEL #

HANGER SR

HANGER SL

6'-0" 40

GENERAL NOTES:

FOH BM SR 1 128 2 168

3 124 4 164

CATWALK LO

1'-6"

3'-6"

1'-6"

1'-9"

1'-6"

1'-9"

121

103

CATWALK HI

161

2 31

143

107

CATWALK HI

> INSTRUMENT SPACING 1'-6" UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. > TRUSS TRIMS TAKEN FROM STAGE FLOOR TO UNDERSIDE OF HANGING PIPE. > BOOM TRIMS TAKEN FROM STAGE FLOOR TO UNDERSIDE OF SIDEARM UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. > PLEASE PROVIDE SPARE CIRCUITS AND DMX AT ALL POSITIONS. > PLEASE PROVIDE SPARE R132, R119, R104 AT FOCUS. > RIG ALL BOOMS TO BE RIGID AND SECURE. > FRONT-END AND GATE ACCESSORIES ARE NOT DRAWN –– SEE HOOKUP FOR ASSIGNMENTS. > CONFIRM PLACEMENT AND HANG OF STAGE AND FOH BOOMS IN SITU WITH LD OR ASSOCIATE PRIOR TO SECURING.

FOH BM SL

CATWALK LO

1'-6"

111

147

151

BY BECKY MODE

THIS DRAWING REPRESENTS VISUAL CONCEPTS AND CONSTRUCTION SUGGESTIONS ONLY. DIRECTOR: JASON MOORE SETS: DEREK McLANE ASSOC. LD: WILBURN BONNELL PROD. ELEC: ERIC NORRIS

BARBARA WHITMAN & PATRICK CATULLO PRESENT:

BY BECKY MODE

THIS DRAWING REPRESENTS VISUAL CONCEPTS AND CONSTRUCTION SUGGESTIONS ONLY. DIRECTOR: JASON MOORE SETS: DEREK McLANE ASSOC. LD: WILBURN BONNELL PROD. ELEC: ERIC NORRIS

FINAL - AS BUILT

04/25/16

MID-TECH UPDATE

03/30/16

SET ELECTRICS

03/16/16

SHOP PREP

02/28/16

PRELIMINARY

02/22/16

B E N S T A N T O N

L.D. #4121

917 975 8235 TEL benstanton00@gmail .com www.benstanton.com

THE LYCEUM THEATER 149 W. 45TH ST. NEW YORK, NY 10036

OVERSTAGE PLOT

SCALE: 1/2" = 1'-0" DATE:

04/25/16

DRAWN: Wb

ASSOCIATE LD CONTACT INFO: WILBURN@BONNELLDESIGN.COM CELL: 203.915.5020

CATWALK POSITIONS DRAWN REMOVED FOR CLARITY

BARBARA WHITMAN & PATRICK CATULLO PRESENT:

FINAL - AS BUILT

04/25/16

MID-TECH UPDATE

03/30/16

SET ELECTRICS

03/16/16

SHOP PREP

02/28/16

PRELIMINARY

02/22/16

B E N S T A N T O N

L.D. #4121

SCALE: 1/2" = 1'-0"

FOH LIGHT PLOT

THE LYCEUM THEATER

917 975 8235 TEL benstanton00@gmail .com www.benstanton.com

149 W. 45TH ST. NEW YORK, NY 10036

DATE:

PLATE:

04/25/16

DRAWN: Wb

OF (5)

Section Lighting Plot

BOX BM SL-FAR

BALC RAIL HI

TRIM: 28'-7"

TRIM

PROS BM SL

#1E

#1 OH

BOX BM SL-NR

#1B BM SL

#1A BM SL

TORM SL

#2 BM SL

#4 BM SR

#3 BM SL

#5 BM SR

CATWALK LO

TRIM: 38'-8"

TRIM: 35'-6"

#2E

TRIM: 35'-6"

#3 OH TRIM: 33'-3"

#4E

TRIM: 28'-3"

#5E

#4 OH

#3E

#2aE

CATWALK HI

Partial Lighting Gear List

BALC RAIL LO

20 10

HANGER SL

STAGE LEVEL

ASSOCIATE LD CONTACT INFO: WILBURN@BONNELLDESIGN.COM CELL: 203.915.5020

BARBARA WHITMAN & PATRICK CATULLO PRESENT:

BY BECKY MODE

THIS DRAWING REPRESENTS VISUAL CONCEPTS AND CONSTRUCTION SUGGESTIONS ONLY. DIRECTOR: JASON MOORE SETS: DEREK McLANE ASSOC. LD: WILBURN BONNELL PROD. ELEC: ERIC NORRIS

FINAL - AS BUILT

04/25/16

MID-TECH UPDATE

03/30/16

SET ELECTRICS

03/16/16

SHOP PREP

02/28/16

PRELIMINARY

02/22/16

B E N S T A N T O N

L.D. #4121

917 975 8235 TEL benstanton00@gmail .com www.benstanton.com

THE LYCEUM THEATER 149 W. 45TH ST. NEW YORK, NY 10036

# #

UTILITY CIRCUIT (NON-DIM) WATTAGE AS PER HOOKUP

LEGEND: UNIT

3'-6"

CHANNEL

UNIT

PROS BM SL

# 1'-3"

MAC VIPER PERFORMANCE 1225W

#1E

UTILITY CIRCUIT (NON-DIM) WATTAGE AS PER HOOKUP

MAC VIPER PERFORMANCE 1225W

388

368

389 6

21 1'-3"

6 26

22 1'-3"

1'-3"

CF72

D 537

8'-0"

905

#1A BM SR

2 22

389

CF72

E 549

CL: | PL:

1a 23

368

1'-6"

#1E

1'-6"

23a

6'-0"

30 494

CL: 27'-7" | FP: +3'-11"

1'-6"

ETC S4 14º ERS 750W

494

ETC S4 10º ERS 750W

TRIM: 28'-3"

1'-0"

494

#1B BM SR

PRACTICAL CIRCUIT (DIMMED) WATTAGE AS PER HOOKUP

388

1'-0"

494

1'-6"

AUTOYOKE 10º 750W

BALC RAIL HI 2'-1"

1'-6"

381

1'-6"

1'-0"

494

383

391

1'-0"

494

380

382

361

465

390

370

363 462

362

390

370 1'-6"

10 16

390 1'-6"

1'-0"

491

COLORFORCE 72 - 720W

PERF

381

3'-3" lx

491

CF72

BALC RAIL LO

391

ETC S4 05º ERS 750W

#5E

CL: 21'-2" | FP: +28'-7"

1'-3"

491

905

1'-3"

1'-0" lx

491

354

#2E

491

TRIM: 35'-6"

1'-3"

491

12a

CL: 28'-4" | FP: +9'-5"

COLORFORCE 48 - 480W

1'-3"

421

CF48

#5 BM SL

A 601

1'-0" lx

491

5'-0"

491

#2 BM SR

1'-3"

491

TRIM: 38'-8"

1'-3"

6" 1'-0"

MINI-TEN WATTAGE AS PER HOOKUP

102

1'-0" lx

492

BIRDIE NSP 150W

BOX BM SL-FAR

110

CF72

B 613

492

1'-6"

#2aE

6'-0"

CF72

1'-3"

492

#3 OH

PIN SPOT 75W

150

1'-3"

561

1'-0"

1'-0" lx

492

425

492

794

#3 BM SR

1'-3"

492

PERF

#3E CL: 26'-8" | FP: +17'-3"

6'-0"

C 625

1'-3"

493

9'-2"

ETC S4 WFL PAR 575W

2'-0"

106

122

2'-0"

466

470

2'-0"

165 9

26 392

469

BALC RAIL LO

2'-0"

125

2'-0"

1'-0" lx

493

2'-0"

493

TRIM: 35'-6"

ETC S4 90º ERS 750W

2'-0"

1'-3"

493

TAILDOWN TO +26’-0”

ETC S4 50º ERS 750W

2'-0"

1'-3"

493

483

ETC S4 70º ERS 750W

BOX BM SL-NR 2'-0"

1'-0" lx

493

ETC 36º LUSTR2 171W

BOX BM SR-NR

3'-0"

637

493

432

3'-4"

APX. 7’-0” TAILDOWN

1'-3"

493

461 ETC S4 26º ERS 750W ETC S4 36º ERS 750W

1'-3"

493

PERF

1'-3"

CF72

649

1'-3"

CF72

487 7a

3'-0"

CF72

661 1'-0"

#4 OH

TRIM: 33'-3"

6'-0"

CF72

CL: 21'-2" | FP: +28'-7"

#4 BM SR

ETC S4 14º ERS 2 750W 201 ETC S4 19º ERS 750W 3

HANGER SL

#5 BM SL

#5E TRIM: 28'-3"

ETC S4 10º ERS 750W

221

1'-6"

PERF

HANGER SL

211 3

221

HANGER SR

231

1'-6"

HANGER SR

231

KEY TO INSTRUMENTATION: ETC S4 05º ERS 750W

6'-0"

PROS BM SL

PROS BM SR

SL CL SECTION

SCALE: 1/2" = 1'-0" DATE:

04/25/16

DRAWN: Wb

PLATE:

OF (5)

# #

THIS DRAWING REPRESENTS VISUAL CONCEPTS AND CONSTRUCTION SUGGESTIONS ONLY.

BY BECKY MODE

CHANNEL

UNIT

SET LX

196

904

OF (5)

#1A BM SR

192 194

1'-9"

475

149

2'-11"

1'-9"

105 7a

11 104 12

1'-6"

2 201

1'-9"

10 145

476 15 1 221

HANGER SR

211 3

1'-9"

101

PROS BM SL

309

231 2

1'-6"

T2 T4

PRACTICAL CIRCUIT (DIMMED) WATTAGE AS PER HOOKUP

SCALE: 1/2" = 1'-0"

1'-9"

1 1'-6"

167

T1 T3 T5

ETC S4 WFL PAR 575W

312 22

166

127

1'-9"

123

478 15

171 9

403

195

Over Stage Lighting Plot

1'-9"

130 7a

6 131

1'-9"

STAGE LEVEL

2'-3"

4'-6"

STAGE LEVEL

1'-3"

1'-9"

183

452

FOH Lighting Plot 40

2'-11"

BARBARA WHITMAN & PATRICK CATULLO PRESENT:

1'-9"

193

AUTOYOKE 14º 750W

ETC S4 90º ERS 750W

SIDE LIGHT PLOT

THE LYCEUM THEATER

917 975 8235 TEL benstanton00@gmail .com www.benstanton.com

191

8 N

AUTOYOKE 10º 750W

ETC S4 50º ERS 750W

PIN SPOT 75W

ETC 36º LUSTR2 171W

ASSOCIATE LD CONTACT INFO: WILBURN@BONNELLDESIGN.COM CELL: 203.915.5020

# #

DIRECTOR: JASON MOORE SETS: DEREK McLANE ASSOC. LD: WILBURN BONNELL PROD. ELEC: ERIC NORRIS

SET LX

COLORFORCE 72 - 720W

ETC S4 36º ERS 750W

UTILITY CIRCUIT (NON-DIM) WATTAGE AS PER HOOKUP

190

184

187

COLORFORCE 48 - 480W

CF72

ETC S4 26º ERS 750W

MAC VIPER PERFORMANCE 1225W

PRACTICAL CIRCUIT (DIMMED) WATTAGE AS PER HOOKUP

373

186

CF48

ETC S4 19º ERS 750W

PERF

LEGEND:

F D

THIS DRAWING REPRESENTS VISUAL CONCEPTS AND CONSTRUCTION SUGGESTIONS ONLY.

BY BECKY MODE

BARBARA WHITMAN & PATRICK CATULLO PRESENT:

200

MINI-TEN WATTAGE AS PER HOOKUP

ETC S4 14º ERS 750W

GENERAL NOTES:

BIRDIE NSP 150W

ETC S4 10º ERS 750W

376

454

PIN SPOT 75W

ETC S4 05º ERS 750W

181

KEY TO INSTRUMENTATION:

443

189 181

ETC S4 WFL PAR 575W

PERF

188

14 Chroma-Q Color Force 12 10 Chroma-Q Color Force 48 18 Chroma-Q Color Force 72 2 ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr 26 4 ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr 36 15 Harman Martin Professional MAC Viper Performance 310 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal (varying degrees) 2 City Theatrical AutoYoke for ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal 14° JUNE 2016 \\\

PLATE:

2 OF (5)

PLATE:

5 OF (5)

COURTESY DEREK MCLANE MONIQUE CARBONI, MCLANE STUDIO

The wine wall creates its own issues for lighting. “All the different colored glass and metal reflects light in really interesting ways,” says Stanton. “We opted to light the wall from behind, from all four sides, with LED strip lights. We can achieve many variations in color, and we also experimented with gradients of color across the whole wall to try to evoke some time-of-day lighting. It took light beautifully. The last, and most important, place to light was the playing space. The lighting wanted to feel dull and claustrophobic—a room with no windows—but the audience has to stare at this space for an hour, so it has to have some beauty and nuance. This is the line we tried to walk with the playing space, and of course, we always want to make sure our star, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, is the brightest thing on stage.” Lighting a one-set show can always be a challenge but Stanton enjoyed it. “In the case of this play, creating variety and beauty in a space that is supposed to be dull and lifeless, all the lighting movement has to be very subtle and carefully executed,” says the lighting designer. “It’s a fun challenge.”

ETC Power Solutions

No system is out of reach for ETCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s power control products. As lighting technology grows, we continue to expand our power control solutions to help transition your venue from traditional tungsten to LED and beyond. Whether you are outfitting a church, a classroom, a theatre, or a stadium, ETC has your Power Solution.

LEARN MORE Americas

Europe

Asia

www.etcconnect.com

ENVISION ///

I N P R A I S E O F P S E s…

In Praise Of PSEs… /// BY JOHN LEONARD

n the dim and distant past, when I didn’t know any better (and West End producers weren’t keen to enlighten me), I rigged my sound systems on my own, balancing precariously on ladders with a speaker in one hand and a wrench in my back pocket. I crawled through filthy spaces to run cables to FOH positions, lugged mixing desks and tape-recorders into impossibly small alcoves, and cadged mains supplies from unwilling house electricians who didn’t hold with this new-fangled sound design stuff. After a while, I sometimes managed to find someone to help out for a few bucks and a pint or two in the pub afterwards, but nothing really on a regular basis, and in fact, on one particular charity gig when the promised help failed to materialize, I rigged 28

four UPA-1s on proscenium booms, on my own, off a ladder, as well as manhandling the amp racks down a flight of stone stairs to the basement, running all the cables and setting up the mics for the band. It nearly killed me. Then one day, I met a chap who was handling projection on a show that I was working on as sound designer. Yes, children, we did projection long before that upstart video came along—programmable, as well. Do a Google search for “AVL Dove” for a look back into the time when the clatter of multiple Kodak Carousel projectors changing slides was the annoying sound of the day. This chap, one John Owens, told me that he did sound as well, not as a designer, but as a production sound engineer, and if I wanted to not put systems together all on my own, he was the man to help out. It so happened that everyone on this particular production, with the exception of the director, was called John: him, me, the lighting designer, and the talent (it was a one man show), which got a tad confusing during technical rehearsals, and in consequence, we became Mr. Leonard and Mr. Owens. In time, we went into business together, and then, many years later, out of business together, at which point I carried

on as sound designer, and he went on to become a well-respected theatre consultant, now resident in New York and doing very well, I must say. And so I was introduced into the world of the production sound engineer: a body of people with a set of skills that are as invaluable to a sound designer as his laptop and his esoteric ear-buds. I have been fortunate to work with some of the very best in the business, both here in the UK and on Broadway, and they have become friends and colleagues, gently dissuading me from some of my more foolhardy plans and digging me out of deep, deep holes when I’ve ignored them and gone ahead anyway. Mostly, this has been done with a sad shake of the head and a gentle reprimand, as nothing is more delicate than a sound designer with a bruised ego. Now that Mr. Owens has become respectable, having tired of digging me and other sound designers out of our respective holes, I have a small go-to team of PSEs who know my foibles and can anticipate and appreciate the sometimes rather strange requests that can appear on my kit lists and are able to decipher my quaint shorthand terms for items of kit, the numbers and letters of which temporarily escape my rapidly diminishing memory. “You know, that small square black rectangular thing that I like to use as a float mic…” They can instantly identify this as a Crown GLM 200 and differentiate it from “that big black rectangular thing that I don’t like to use as

My favorite UK production sound engineer is a genius by the name of Ken Hampton. Ken is brilliant, knowledgeable, diplomatic, thorough, and just loves a challenge.

a float mic but have no choice…” which is, of course…well, I’m sure you know what I mean. My favorite UK production sound engineer is a genius by the name of Ken Hampton. Ken is brilliant, knowledgeable, diplomatic, thorough, and just loves a challenge. As I write this, he is busily engaged with a colleague of mine, working on The York Mystery Plays and putting what will no doubt be a pristine-sounding installation into York Minster, the largest medieval Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe, with an RT60 in excess of seven seconds.

You can hear it here under the “Impulse Responses” tab.

JUNE 2016 \\\

ENVISION ///

I N P R A I S E O F P S E s…

Nothing fazes Ken: He has a toolkit and an accessories kit to cover all eventualities, and if he hasn’t got it, he’ll either make it or source it incredibly quickly. On an outdoor gig as part of the 2012 Olympics, Ken not only provided a flight-cased refrigerator to keep the milk for our tea and coffee at a sensible temperature during the week-long heatwave that we had to endure, but he also sorted out quite a few problems for the broadcast team, who turned up more than a little unprepared. Ken and John Owens in the UK, along 30

with Jim van Bergen and Chris Cronin in the USA, and a few others who I don’t have space to mention, have gotten me out of more trouble than I care to remember, and yet, they are rarely considered as being part of what’s now become known as The Creative Team. The job that they do allows those of us who call ourselves designers to do the best work that we can, and without them, many a nascent sound designer would have come a horrible cropper. They deserve our thanks, our appreciation, and probably, at least in some cases, our awards.

On one of my earlier forays into the world of Broadway, I committed an almost unforgivable faux pas, the details of which are not important now. Suffice to say that I really shouldn’t have done what I did, and I really shouldn’t have done it when I did it. My production sound engineer took me to one side and gently explained that he’d managed not to get me thrown out of the theatre and that he’d mollified the local crew and that everything was now okay. I asked him what he’d said. “Oh that was easy,” he replied. “I just told them you were an ignorant Brit who didn’t know any better, and they accepted that without question.” Let’s hear it for production sound engineers all over the world.

I just told them you were an ignorant Brit who didn’t know any better, and they accepted that without question.

Jo h n L e o n a r d i s a n award-winning designer who has been working in theatre sound for over 40 years. In his spare time, he records anything that makes an interesting noise in high-definition surround sound. He is also almost certainly the only sound designer in the world to have piloted a Spitfire. His sound effects libraries are available online at www.asoundeffect.com. JUNE 2016 \\\

NIN T H A NNU A L

BY M A RI A N S A NDBERG

THE ANNUAL EXCELLENCE IN LIVE DESIGN AWARDS allow our fellow professionals to be recognized by their peers for exceptional design work. Readers voted on the yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best nominated projects in architainment, concerts, corporate events, live for broadcast, club venues, and theatrical venues. Congratulations to all the winners who have shown

Excellence In Live Design.

AND THE WINNERS ARE JUNE 2016 \\\

ARCHITAINMENT The Jack Chow Building Submitted by World’s Famous Building Corporation With dramatic showcase presentations inspired by the four classical elements, civilization, and universal concepts such as love, magic, and the history and modernization of Vancouver Chinatown, The Jack Chow building runs hourly shows synchronized to music, animating the facade during the day and at night. This 4’ 10” city-block-long oddity, recognized by Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, was built in 1913 on a bet. When Jack Chow purchased the building in 1985, it went from housing up to 13 businesses (including an underground bathhouse that extended under the glass block sidewalk) to the head office of Jack Chow Insurance, an established insurance broker in Chinatown since the 1960s. By 1986, its first major heritage rehabilitation was completed, garnering Chow several heritage awards and a Guinness World Record Certificate. The building recently required renovations again due to deterioration. One of the driving components of the renovation was to create an all-glass center vestibule, extending out onto the sidewalk, to 34

allow passage from one side of the building to the other without having to leave the interior of the building. Neon was, historically, a common feature in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown, the largest Chinatown neighborhood in North America outside of San Francisco. Very few signs remain today, and the desire to bring this back and use a modernized version of neon as a central design element was part of the inspiration for the upgrade. After some trade show research, LED Neon Flex was found. A multiple-pixel resolution of this product was applied to the new glass staircase and is featured in the ceiling of the central vestibule, as well as in the exterior window wickets from which insurance is now sold. The desire to expand the lighting treatment and take advantage of the basement skylights in the glass sidewalk, as well as the roof soffit on the upper floor, led to the use of Philips linear luminaires to integrate these features. The color features of the building are supported by a variety of white-light accents on the interior and exterior of the

building, also integrated into both the functional illumination of the space, as well as the show control system. The bay windows on the upper floor create both a full-length continuous skylight, and an opportunity to use the length as a lit element. The idea developed from a simple animated neon facade to create a series of storyline-based shows, inspired by and synchronized to music. Audio and video were added to the design to accommodate the vision. Designer Rod Chow’s vision was to transform this already world-famous landmark into a street-side architainment attraction. By contracting with control system designer firm Eos Lightmedia, Chow was able to establish an artistically-driven, collaborative relationship with the firm’s project designer, Eugene Mendelev, to utilize Mendelev’s broad theatre-based background and programming experience. JUNE 2016 \\\

VIDEO PROJECT DESIGN TEAM

Owner: World’s Famous Building Corporation, Jack W. Chow, CEO and Rod Chow, President Lighting Designer and Director: Rod Chow Control System Designer and Supplier, System Commissioning, and Programming: Eos Lightmedia Corp. Associate Lighting Director and ETC and Interactive Technologies Programmer: Eugene Mendelev, Eos Control System Designer: Douglas Welch, Principal, Eos System Commissioning: Eugene Mendelev, Eos and Mark Hayashida, Eos Audio & Video Supplier: Westcoast Audio Video Gallery A/V Designer: Armand Rajkumar, Westcoast A/V Programming and Integration: Josh Wright, Westcoast

KEY EQUIPMENT

Philips Color Kinetics iColor Cove QLX Powercore RGB Philips Color Kinetics iColor Cove MX Powercore RGB LED Neon Flex RGB LED Neon Flex White Philips Strand Lighting A21 Lighting Panel Interactive Technologies CueServer 2 with CuePad touch interface controlling six DMX universes of approximately 850 pixels plus 50 control points over 160 white luminaires Programming Console: ETC Ion and Nomad interfaces for a variety of seasonal and special event static and animated looks plus six audio-synced storyboarded shows Audio/Video Control: RTI Technologies GX7 Video Distribution: Just Add Power Speakers: JBL Professional Control 25T – 30 Interior/Exterior Video Displays: 4K Samsung and Sony - 9 Interior 36

CONCERT J Cole’s Forest Hills Drive Tour Submitted by LMG Touring Platinum recording artist J. Cole capped off his Forest Hills Drive Tour by selling out signature venues across the country such as Madison Square Garden and the coveted Staples Center. LMG Touring provided video, audio, and lighting in support of his “Hollywood” act, which concluded a massive three-act stretch. The popular summer tour was based off his 2014 Forest Hills Drive album, which is the first hip-hop album to go platinum in 25 years with no guest artists. The album, named after the address of his childhood house, is considered to be a self-described personal statement. “This tour was really all about him growing up and the impact of that house,” explains Ray Rogers, J. Cole’s production manager and audio engineer. The set, built by Gallagher Staging, features a replica of the Forest Hills Drive home, and consists of a ground support designed to angle up into an LED screen that provides a ramp for the artist. The theatrical design was lined with Robe CycFX 4s, while TMB Solaris Flare strobes shone through the win-

dows. A flown set piece, also lined with Robe CycFX 4s, completed the illusion of lying between two houses and looking into the sky. LMG’s 7.5mm LED tiles, with content driven by Catalyst media servers, were used to illuminate custom staging elements, which mirrored the mood and emotion of Cole’s performance to heighten the experience for his fans. A live band was positioned between the riser LED screen and the upstage screen to create a unique listening experience. Video for the tour included a seven-camera, 4A switcher package that marries Grass Valley LDK CMOS cameras, Sony RoboCams, and spy cameras together seamlessly. The video elements of the show were enhanced by a powerful lighting design that featured Robe Pointes, Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Washes, VL3500 Wash FX fixtures, and Harman Martin Professional Mac Quantum Wash fixtures. “We sent Kevin Maas the design of the set, and he was able to design the lighting package to fit the house perfectly,” states Rogers. JUNE 2016 \\\

LMG hung 24 L-Acoustics K1 cabinets supplemented by six K2 down fills, 12 monitors and 20 SB28 subs. The SSL L500 digital audio console handled every channel at FOH and the Digidesign Venue Profile 48 console was a workhorse for monitors. An SSL Live recorder was used to multi-track every show and for virtual sound check. LMG built custom amp rack carts so that they could roll them in and roll them back out smoothly and quickly. The audiovisual elements had to be dialed in from the get go. There were no second chances. Due to the lack of onsite rehearsal time, LMG provided an ESP Vision Pre-Viz system and Catalyst Media Servers for ten days of pre-programming. “We did not have a dress rehearsal for this tour, and we pulled it off for the first show. It was miraculous,” raves Rogers. “It was just a great start for the tour.” “This was a great looking and sounding tour, very theatrical with a big visceral impact,” states Craig Mitchell, LMG’s director of touring. 38

VIDEO EQUIPMENT LIST

1 IME for HD Switching Package with custom rack built for the tour 1 MA Lighting grandMA2 lighting console full/monitor kit 20 TMB Solaris LED Flare 6 Philips Showline 640/4’ LED Wash 15 Robe CycFX 4 Moving LED 32 Robe Robin Pointe Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FX 1 SSL Live L500 Digital Console Package Catalyst Media Server Panasonic 21K Projectors (side screens) Roe 7.5mm LED Tiles (upstage LED screen) Design Team Stage Designer: Gallagher Staging Production Manager: Raymond Rogers Supplier: LMG JUNE 2016 \\\

CORPORATE EVENT Education First 50th Anniversary Gala Submitted by Port Lighting Systems While Boston was enduring two blizzards resulting in record-breaking snowfall, preparations continued for the 50th Anniversary of Education First (EF). EF, “The World Leader in International Education,” focuses on language, academics, and cultural experience, employing a staff of 40,500 across 107 countries. Michael Wasserman envisioned the guests of the Education First (EF) 50th Anniversary completely immersed in environments and locations key to EF’s success throughout the evening. Port Lighting Systems thought 360° largescale video embodied Wasserman’s vision perfectly. Kyle Stetson and Steve Bearse designed the 512’ wide by 31’ high surround screen and overhead lighting package to fit in the Hynes Convention Center. Vectorworks 3D rendering provided a view of the room that enabled Port to determine maximum screen size and exact trim heights of all of the trusses in the venue, with the goal of obstruction-free projection. To create a seamless 360° experience, the screens were designed 40

with a custom framing system. During the main dinner course, guests enjoyed the panoramic views of eight EF-inspired locations, ranging from Shanghai to the Alps. The imagery on the screen was driven by four d3 Technologies servers, provided by Ice 9 Productions. The d3 servers also brought in feed from seven camera sources to include iMag feed for the keynote and the performances. The 360° projection and iMag allowed every audience member to experience the content equally and from the comfort of his or her seat. Complementing the video with hundreds of lighting cues through the use of color and texture transformed the room from the warmth of the rainforest to the frigid peaks of the Alps. The lighting rig was designed to be efficient in fixture quantity, yet still have full coverage of the room, aisles, and stages with individual looks. The tables, which were made of custom-frosted Plexiglas covered in white satin fabric were underlit with two Cube Echo battery LEDs, allowing the tables to change with the screens.

The evening included performances by various local and international acts. The show opened with a gospel choir singing on the center circle stage and transitioned into a kids hip hop troupe, who danced along to previously shot video of international EF employees dancing. Later in the evening, twelve acrobatic aerialists performed a routine reaching a height of 25â&#x20AC;&#x2122; in the air. The Pegasus system individually controlled the height and speed of the winches the aerialists were suspended from. Down lighting and strategic video content were used for the aerialists to avoid obstructions on the screens. The evening concluded with a high-energy Bollywood performance by Priyanka Chopra that included a choreographed light show and eye candy content on the large screens. The collaboration of multiple production and labor companies allowed this show to be hung and focused in a short amount of time in order to be ready for the tight rehearsal schedule. These wide screen format screens provide Port Lightingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clients a chance to brand and message in an immersive environment. JUNE 2016 \\\

VIDEO PRODUCTION STAFF

Producer: Michael Wasserman (MWPI, Inc.) Creative Director: Art Corriveau Production Designer/Technical Director: Kyle Stetson Production Manager: Kevin Fuller EF Director of Editorial: Jeff Sias EF Video Producer: Brian Lemieux

LIGHTING AND SCREENS: PORT LIGHTING SYSTEMS

Lighting Designer: Steve Bearse MA Lighting grandMA2 Lighting Programmer: Tyler Trofatter Screen Installation Supervisor: Rolando Torres Additional Equipment: Main Light Industries

PROJECTIONS: ICE9 PRODUCTIONS Video Project Manager: Matt Geiser Video Director: Bill Lawler d3 Programmer: Kyle Bjordahl

RIGGING EQUIPMENT/LABOR: JCALPRO, INC. Rigging Supervisor: Russ Jones Rigging Crew Chief: Pat Ryan

AERIALIST RIGGING: FLYING BY FOY

Aerialist Rigging Supervisors: Andrew Wilkinson (USR), Joe McGeough, Perry Fertwig Aerialist Rigger: Dan McGeough

PARTIAL GEAR

52 Harman Martin Professional MAC III Performance 48 Harman Martin Professional MAC 2000 Wash XB Beam 5 Harman Martin Professional MAC Viper Profile 8 Harman Martin Professional MAC Aura 8 Harman Martin Professional MAC 101 RGB 24 Robe Lighting Robin Pointe 6 Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 16 Ultratech Ice Jet Cryo 200 Eternal Lighting Cube Echo 2 MA Lighting grandMA2 Full Size 2 MA Lighting NPU 4 d3 Technologies 4x4pro media server 24 Barco HDF-W26 Projector 4 Muslin cyc 31’ h x 128’ w (custom by Rose Brand) 12 DW-V2 lift winches 1 Pegasus control console

LIVE FOR BROADCAST Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Show Submitted by A.C.T Lighting Katy Perry’s glittering 12-minute halftime show at Super Bowl XLIX in the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona marked lighting designer Bob Barnhart’s 17th big game and his fifth as the primary or sole lighting designer. Barnhart deployed 140 Clay Paky Sharpys, 120 Clay Paky Mythos fixtures, and 94 Clay Paky B-EYE K20s. “The Super Bowl is different from anything else I do. The halftime show had an amazing entrance and exit and a lot of different things happening in between, all in 12 minutes stuck in the middle of the world’s largest sporting event,” Barnhart says. “The first two-and-a-half minutes featured 600 glowing orbs, a giant lion, and a moving chessboard. That was a lot of eye candy that kept viewers wondering where it all was headed. We went from end zone to end zone twice: Katy started in the north end zone, joined Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott in the south end zone, and then went back to the north end zone for the flying rig. The show was physically very large and very ambitious in all areas!” Barnhart positioned 140 Sharpys on

the upstage side of the 400-level rail and the south end zone rail and deployed several on a cart behind the lion puppet to add some light and texture behind the giant creature as it moved through the dark. David Grill, one of the show’s lighting directors, notes that one of the “coolest things” about the three Clay Paky fixtures is “the amount of light they generate compared to the amount of power they consume. Power has huge implications on a production: paying for it, acquiring/generating it, and the quantity of cables required to connect a cart.” Barnhart was introduced to Clay Paky’s new Mythos fixture at a demo at A.C.T Lighting. “I saw a great high-powered beam then they zoomed it out,” he recalls. “I knew right away that this kind of versatility could be very useful to me.” Grill was impressed by the Mythos as well. “Their brightness, ability to color fade, their gobos, and unique beam spread—Mythos had everything we needed,” he says. Barnhart points out that the halftime JUNE 2016 \\\

BRAD DUNS

stage set posed a unique lighting challenge. “It was a projection surface, but it had a lot of dancers on it. I had to light them but not the surface. And when there were no dancers, I wanted to provide dynamic air graphics. I positioned the Mythos fixtures around the perimeter of the projection surface on giant rolling carts so I could light the dancers and fill the air with beams of light. I had custom gobos to use like shutters and cut off the field.” The B-EYE K20s made their Super Bowl debut in 2014 when they were new to the market, says Barnhart. This time he upped the quantity significantly, dimmed the fixtures to seven percent, and used them in conjunction with the Mythos fixtures on carts. “They provided more eye candy for the background and made the perimeter set glow. Their color and pattern movement added tempo and activity to the camera shot,” he explains. Jason Rudolph, the lighting director in charge of the video system, used an MA Lighting grandMA2 console to control the projection and inflatable, illuminated orbs. “The grandMA2 light is my console of choice,” he says. “It always performs well, and the Super Bowl was no exception.” 44

BRAD DUNS

CREW

Bob Barnhart, Lighting Designer David Grill, Lighting Director Pete Radice, Lighting Director Jason Rudolph, Lighting Director Tony Ward, Gaffer David Serralles, Best Boy Dean Brown, Best Boy Joe Faretta, Best Boy Paul Bell, Best Boy Keith Berkes, Lead Spot Operator Tim Altman, Lead Spot Operator John Warburton, Lead Spot Operator George Sennefelder, Lead Spot Operator Robb Minnotte, Project Manager Jeff Anderson, Lead Tech Matt Geneczko, Lead Tech Chris Conti, Lead Network Tech Quinn Smith, Arc Light Spot Tech Alex Ward, Fiber Switch Supervisor

LIGHTING GEAR

140 Clay Paky Sharpy 120 Clay Paky Mythos 94 Clay Paky B-Eye K20 72 PRG Best Boy 72 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash 24 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Spot 16 GLP impression X4 XL 12 GLP impression X4 Bar 20 16 Ayrton NandoBeam-S6 12 Ayrton MagicRing-R1 8 Brite Box Flame LT3000 Long Throw Followspot 7 Brite Box Flame MT3000 Medium Short Throw Followspot 110 Chroma-Q Color Block 62 TMB Solaris LED Flare PRG V676 console for lighting MA Lighting grandMA2 console JUNE 2016 \\\

VENUE (CLUB OR LOUNGE) Omni Nightclub In Taipei Submitted by theLOOP Production As the venue name implies, Omni Nightclub boasts an omniscient first impression that is impossible to miss. Its aesthetics, visuals, sounds, and its performances are tied seamlessly together in order to convey the meaning of “omni” and live up to the name. Anyone casting a first glance at the venue will notice its dazzling curved LED screen. The 5mm LED panels, 100’ in width and 652 sq.ft in total surface area, complete with Green Hippo’s Hippotizer V4 Karst at its heart, the C-shaped screen located on all three sides of the walls over the dance floor gives the spectators a 360° surrounding sense of encompassment, creating a panoramic live experience much akin to that of an amphitheatre. “The goal of Omni is to provide the ultimate all-encompassing experience, presenting a platform for all kinds of creativities,” explained David Hsia, the owner of Omni. To achieve the perfect curvature of the LED panels, Omni set up an international task force dedicated to figuring out what the best angle between each panel is and 46

how it should be installed. The task force, consisting of interior designers, lighting designers, visual designers, and hardware manufacturers, along with contractors, worked tirelessly on the project over hundreds of man-hours just to work out the realization of the visual marvel that sits serenely at the center of Omni today. Besides the curved wonder, the custom-made spinning lighting truss so aptly named “Stargate” that hovers above the dance floor also grants the audience a unique and intense visual experience. “Lighting not only expresses the depth and tension of music, it also serves as a visual extension beyond the pixels of its signature curved LED,” explains Hsiao-Cheng Kuo, lighting designer of Omni. To realize such a visual extension, the curved LED was designed with Ayrton Magic Panel-R units placed within the grand arc. Powered by Madrix, the impact of visual sources showing on the LED panels is enhanced by the pixel-perfect clarity of its pixel mapping functionality. Color from Ayrton Magic RollaPix™ above and beneath the main screen contribute

to the overall atmosphere. Apart from the all-encompassing LED and lighting panels that form the focal center of Omni, the Acme 710-Beam 5R units installed on the spinning truss above the dance floor, along with the mind-blowing LED strips engraved on each side of the 18,000sq.ft. long main room, also play an important role in the extensive experience. Opened in May 2015, Omni has won numerous awards and accolades in less than a year, including none other than the prestigious iF Design Award 2016 in the Hotel/Spa/Restaurant/ Bar category, making it the first nightclub in Asia to receive such an honor. In addition to the iF Design Award, Omni has also won the German Design Award, I-Ding International Design Award, JingTang Award, and the China Good Design Award. The curved LED panorama screen, the Ayrton Magic Panel-R panel matrix, and the spinning Stargate lighting truss all integrate seamlessly. Omni is both a physical and spiritual experience not to be missed. JUNE 2016 \\\

VIDEO SELECTED GEAR LIST

14 Ayrton MagicPanel-R 16 Ayrton RollaPix â&#x201E;¢ 47 Acme AE-710-Beam16 Acme LED-ST1000 Strobe 12 Acme UV050N 18,000 ft. LED strip in total length 1 MA Lighting grandMA2 console 1 Madrix Luna 4 1 Green Hippo Hippotizer V4 Karst 1 Antari HZ-500 Hazer 1 ARC Automation System 1 3 Meter ARC Moving Truss 1 6 Meter ARC Moving Truss 652 sq-ft 5 mm Video Tile2 Void Incubus Array 4 Void Hyperfold 48

2 Void Incubus Sub 8 Void Airten V2 Delay 10 Powersoft Amp1 Midas PRO1 Digital Console 1 Pioneer DJM-900NXS 2 Pioneer CDJ-2000NXS 4 Downstage upward CO2 Blaster 4 Dance floor downward CO2 Blaster 2 Downstage upward power Confetti Blaster

DESIGN TEAM

Design Lead: David Hsia/theLOOP Production Production Manager: Cindy Liu/theLOOP Production Production Design, Lighting Design: Hsiao Cheng Kuo Interior Design: Sean Chang/E-Tai Space Design

VENUE (THEATRE OR PERFORMANCE) Dai Show Theatre Submitted by Stufish Entertainment Architects As part of a large cultural development in Xishuangbanna, China, Stufish was commissioned by Dalian Wanda Group to design a theatre. Consequently, Stufish became the first practice ever to deliver all architectural and show elements for a theatre. Designing the entire project allowed Stufish to present a holistic architectural language throughout. The structure of the 1,183-seat building is inspired by the geometry of the palm frond found in local Dai culture and regional nature, and is specifically reflected in the shallow peaked roof. Permanent “dragon roots” appear to grow out of the stage, creating the impression that nature is taking over the architecture. The brief was to create a thematic venue for the Wanda development inspired by the local culture and nature of Xishuangbanna in the Yunnan Province in China, fusing them to create an iconic symbol. The building was to house a permanent acrobatic water show created by show producers Dragone. Stufish also designed the stage and set for the show.

The structure of the 1,183-seat theatre is inspired by the geometry of the local palm frond, folding in a manner which increases the structural rigidity and echoes the roofs of local Dai architecture. The 110m (360’) diameter golden roof is split into two tiers, expressing the folding nature of palm fronds. The roof acts as a canopy for the open-air lobby, and the structural openings between the tiers allow for natural ventilation, responding to Xishuangbanna’s subtropical climate. Stufish’s organic design continues inside the theatre, where long textured “leaves” form golden walls that twist up into the ceiling, creating an intimate, low-lit atmosphere in the VIP areas. The repetitive folding patterns carry on throughout the interior spaces, into exclusive suites, at times transforming into radial embossed chandeliers. In the auditorium, the primary folded trusses of the roof structure are exposed and with the low grid height, sitting just 18m (59’) above the seats, it creates an intimate experience giving the impression that the audience is sitting beneath JUNE 2016 \\\

RAPHAEL OLIVIER

a canopy of palm trees. Stufish also integrated ten acrobatic gates with an elaborate 3D flying system into the design of the roof structure, allowing performers to fly from the 9m (29’) platform and soar above both stage and audience. The auditorium is arranged so that the audience is seated in the round, surrounding a 1,400sq-m stage that is split into three sections. The central stage has a 14m-wide performance basin containing an 8m (26’) wide pool plug, which lowers down 5.5m (18’) to allow for a dramatic 15m (49’) high-dive off the catwalk above. Adjacent is the forestage, which, along with the central stage, can be either wet or dry. The final performance area is a dry upstage section used symbolically to convey a vast infinity and for more practical purposes, such as storing and transporting scenery. Water can flood the areas separately and fill the entire performance basin in 45 seconds and then be drained in just 20 seconds. The production’s fantastical elements are emphasized by scenery hanging from the grid and permanent large “dragon roots” that appear to grow out of the stage and create the impression that nature is taking over the architecture. Lighting, projection, and special water effects, such as cascades and fountains, further support a creative storyline of imagination, love, and local legends. The holistic approach to the complete design has created an extraordinary theatre, where the worlds of architecture and set design have been coherently and magically united. The building and show opened September 25, 2015. 50

RAPHAEL OLIVIER

PARTIAL EQUIPMENT LIST

255 Goldensea Lighting Fixture 14 Clay Paky A.Leda B-Eye K20 230 Philips Showline SL Spots 82 Ayrton ArcaLine™2 100 LED 5 ETC Sensor 3 Dimmer Rack 2 ETC Paradigm Architectural Control Processor 2 MA Lighting grandMA2 Console 4 VYV Photon Media Server 9 Christie DS+14K-M Projector 232 VYV Copernic LED Emitter 14 Antari Z-3000-IIR Fog Machine 2 Meyer Sound CueConsole 2 Meyer Sound D-Mitri System 2 Meyer Sound Galileo 616 Meyer Sound Loudspeaker System 2 Lubell Labs Underwater Loudspeaker Sennheiser Wireless Mic System Clear-Com HME Pro850 Wireless Intercom 1 Yamaha DME 24N

DESIGN PROJECT TEAM

Architect: Stufish Entertainment Architects Interior Designer: Stufish Entertainment

Architects Theatre Consultants: Auerbach Pollock Friedlander Clerk of Works: Sandman Associates International Construction Design: China IPPR International Engineering Co. Ltd Interior LDI: Beijing Qingshang Environmental Art & Architectural Design Institute Co. Ltd. Landscape Designer: DL&C Landscapes Pty Ltd., Guangdong, China Contractor: China State 11 Client: Dalian Wanda Group

PERFORMANCE PROJECT TEAM

Set Designer: Stufish Entertainment Architects Lighting Designer: Olivier Legendre Costume Designer: Nicolas Vaudelet Sound Designer: Corrado Campanelli Composer: Michael Brennan Projection Specialists: VYV Corporation Theatre Draperies: Showtex, Hong Kong Scenery Fabrication: Yang Liping Workshop, Beijing Client/Director: Dragone JUNE 2016 \\\

THEATRE PERFORMANCE The Gift Of Christmas 2015 Submitted by UVLD

Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas has a long history of presenting some of the most creative and cutting-edge Christmas productions in the country. Having decided to re-imagine the production and creative direction of the show this year, Prestonwood turned to long-time design collaborators UVLD to deliver an all-new production and lighting design as well as provide overall technical direction for the show. The design featured an all new show deck, a 150â&#x20AC;&#x2122;-wide video surface made up of 16 individual panels tracked to move in pairs for varying configurations. The 52

panels opened to reveal a 350-person choir framed above and below by highres LED surfaces. The production design was led by UVLD designer Matt Webb in association with David Sumner. Webb was also the lighting designer for the event. Greg Norgeot served as technical director, overseeing a large-scale install on a tight timeline in an unconventional space. The video system utilized a coolux Pandoras Box system to provide playback for a visual canvas that was over 12,000 pixels wide. Cameron Yeary designed and oversaw all of the video

JORDAN MONK

playback components. Each of the panels also provided encoder feedback to the Pandora system to allow for real-time tracking of the projection to the panels. Video content was designed by Jordan Monk. Gemini Stage Lighting provided a large rental package to augment the churchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existing lighting inventory. The lighting featured over 220 automated fixtures. Built into the set was over 300m (984â&#x20AC;&#x2122;) of LED tape, providing visual interest and another dimension to the look of the show deck. Nick Deel was the production electrician. In addition to the tracking panels, the show had over 31 total axes of automation, flying seven angels, a sleigh, six drummers, and one soloist. All flying effects were done by ZFX under the watchful eye of lead flying director Brian Owens. XL Video provided all of the LED for the project, and projection was from Media Solutions. Communilux built the set, with Dan Kirsch as the production carpenter. Rigging was done by Clay Carter.

JUNE 2016 \\\

Congrats to the Winners! Architainment:

The Jack Chow Building

Submitted by World’s Famous Building Corporation

Concert:

J. Cole’s Forest Hills Drive Tour Submitted by LMG Touring

Corporate Event:

Education First 50th Anniversary Gala

Submitted by Port Lighting Systems

Live For Broadcast:

Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Show Submitted by A.C.T Lighting

Venue (Club or Lounge): Omni Nightclub In Taipei

Submitted by theLOOP Production

Venue (Theatre or Performance): Dai Show Theatre Submitted by Stufish

Theatre Performance:

The Gift of Christmas 2015

Submitted by UVLD

FE ATURE

DREAM POP

FLOW ER

POW ER BEACH HOUSE TOURS A WHOLE NEW CONCEPT /// B Y S T E V E N B A T T A G L I A

FE ATURE

“Lighting took somewhat of a backseat in the show, while video really carried it,” says Watrach.

n support of its two latest albums, Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars, Baltimore-based dream pop band Beach House hit the road this spring with a new concept for its tour: installation shows interspersed among club tour dates. Performing in unconventional spaces such as galleries, art spaces, and community centers, band members Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally perform a continuous show without breaks for 200 audience members seated on the floor. Live Design talked with Beach House installation show lighting designer Joe Watrach for details on the performance’s design and creative process. 56

THE SHOW IS DRIVEN OFF AN [MA LIGHTING] GRANDMA2 LIGHT CONSOLE. I AM A VERY VISUAL PERSON, AND I USE LAYOUT VIEWS ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY TO PROGRAM MY SHOWS. BEING ABLE TO SEE YOUR FIXTURES LAID OUT AS THEY ARE ON STAGE AND GRAB THEM WITH THE LASSO TOOL, OR ONE BY ONE, HAS GREATLY SPED UP MY EFFICIENCY AND WORKFLOW. JOE WATRACH

JUNE 2016 \\\

FE ATURE

LIVE DESIGN: How did you become a part of the creative team for the Beach House tour? JOE WATRACH: I was touring as lighting director for Spoon, a band that Jack Davis, Beach House’s primary tour designer, has also worked with. I was filling in for him while he was out with other shows. Near the end of the Spoon run, Jack reached out and asked if I would like to help out with Beach House. I gladly accepted and began with them in September of 2015. When I initially joined the team, I came on as lighting director, filling in for Jack as he was away. However, once the band’s most recent albums were released, I began to work in much more of a design role. Once the installation show rolled around, I stepped into the designer role fully as that show came to life. Now, seven months later, I am handing the reins back over to Jack. LD: Can you tell us about the installation show, how it differed from the club show, and how it evolved? JW: The club tour is Beach House’s primary [touring] show, while the installation show was a completely different experience. The 58

club tour, at its core, is much like any other club tour out there: We go city-to-city and play your usual run of venues with our full production. The installation show was a one hundred percent different show altogether. We performed every show in non-traditional performance spaces, mostly art galleries. The only things that the installation show had in common with the club shows were the lighting fixtures and some of the songs. In the one month that we performed the installation show, it grew incredibly quickly. The scenic pieces found a new home in the performance space almost every show, and we were constantly evolving the lighting and video programming as we found new things that excited us. It was a massively rewarding piece of art to be a part of. Aside from the physical location of the installation show, the way it was presented to the audience was very different. Only 200 tickets were sold for each show, a number decided on by Alex [Scally]. It was determined that everyone would sit on the floor for the performance, and once that was settled upon, we figured out how many people we could accommodate and not lose any aspects of the show to over-crowding. This was a fantastic decision and led to a totally immersive experience not only for the audience, but for the band and the production team as well. The show was roughly 70 minutes long and presented nonstop. The music never stopped, as the band created special transitions to carry them from song to song. Additionally, there was always a visual element present throughout the performance, whether it was Alex and Vic-

MY MAIN INSPIRATION FOR THE DESIGN OF THIS SHOW WERE THE FLOWER WALL SET PIECES. THE LIGHTING WAS FAIRLY MINIMAL THROUGHOUT THE PERFORMANCE. JOE WATRACH

toria dimly lit, a piece of video content, or the scenic pieces lit up throughout the room. All of these elements combined really helped to create a truly unique experience, the likes of which I have never seen elsewhere in the concert world. Lighting also took somewhat of a backseat in this show, while video really carried it. The video was a mixture of content that we filmed in rehearsal of the scenic pieces and then played back through the media server, as well as plenty of live video of the band and the room, from a handful of cameras that we use. Many times, we would fade back and forth between content that I controlled from the server, and live video of the band, creating some really lovely looks. The scenic pieces themselves were a major part of the show and were something that Alex and Victoria came up with. Comprising roughly 148 flowers in plastic boxes stitched with fiber optics, they were really a sight to see. The pieces were designed so that they created one large wall, four separate walls, or any combination in between. We started off the tour with them as a solid wall behind the band, two boxes wide by two high. Since then, we have moved them out into the audience in a few different configurations. They provided a very fluid element to the show, constantly changing color and sparkling all around the audience during different parts of the performance. JUNE 2016 \\\

FE ATURE

LD: What was your creative process like for this design? JW: [For the installation show], I was starting from scratch, designing something completely new alongside the band. Our PM, Ryan Primack, and I traveled to Baltimore, where Beach House is from, and spent three days in their rehearsal space. With a small package from See Factor, I created the entire show visually, while Alex and Victoria worked on the set list, rehearsed songs, etc. Together, we created a brand new experience in just those three short days. My main inspiration for the design of this show were the flower wall set pieces. The lighting was fairly minimal throughout the performance. I placed four GLP impression X4 Bar 20s in a line on the floor, just downstage of the large Rose Brand organza sheet that the band sat behind. There were another four X4 Bar 20s upstage of the band, raised off the floor on cases. Then, on either side of the stage, I placed one pipe and base boom with an ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr doing cross-stage shots to light the band. Lastly, I had one Harman Martin Professional MAC Aura behind Alex and Victoria for a little of the great diagonal backlight that I love so much. Jack and I both love MAC Auras as our go-to LED wash light. Their compact size versus their high output and great color rendering make them an ideal choice for all of the shows we do. For Beach House, their size was especially important, as the band arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t 60

Beach House interspersed installation shows among its club tour dates.

huge fans of seeing lights on the deck. With the compact size of the fixtures, we were able to tuck them off stage or behind pieces of back line, while still getting the shots that we needed to light the band. Additionally, they’re great at both pastel and saturated colors. Much of the show was fairly dark and minimalistic, with the majority of the cues happening as we transitioned between songs. Almost all of the cues were between 30 seconds to over a minute in length. The lighting changes were meant to be subtle and almost imperceptible until they were complete, taking their time as the music slowly shifted and swirled around the audience. While Beach House’s music is often very mellow and dreamy, their live performances often incorporate much more energy and intensity than the album version of the songs. That being said, it really opened up my color palette for this show. I loved mixing it up between pastels and saturates, and using each to really accentuate the music and help lead the audience along throughout the show. As in the club show, the X4 Bars were a major player. They were the first thing the audience saw as they entered the space, as we had them tipped into the crowd running a very, very slow—1 BPM—color effect. During the show, they became a very visceral element, playing on the fabric in front of and behind the band. The organza acted almost like a silk gel in cyc lights, taking the light from the X4 Bars and diffusing it vertically. It had a really lovely quality to it, taking light and video in fantastic JUNE 2016 \\\

FE ATURE

ways, but almost disappearing when the stage was dark. I used this to my advantage during the show, where I framed the band from behind, using only the cells of the fixtures that were directly behind the band. The result was an illuminated box on the organza, while the rest remained in darkness. Our PM Ryan played an integral part during these shows as well. He operated the video switcher and camera with us at FOH. We figured out where we wanted to use content from the server, when we wanted to use live video, and when we wanted to use both. He was at liberty to choose when and how to fade between sources, adding a very fluid, lifelike quality to the video in the show. LD: Tell us a little bit more about the video content in the show. JW: Our video content for the show was all recorded segments of the flower walls. We had closeups of single flowers, groups of flowers, and the whole wall. We recorded pieces where we would tilt up from the bottom of the wall towards the top while zooming in and then back down and out again, and also this same concept but in panning motions. We layered these two videos on top of each other for a really excellent, fluid look that became one of my favorite moments in the show. This created a really interesting dynamic, because we brought in the content of the set pieces before we actually turned them on in the show, so the audience was seeing these colorful flowers on the organza and then when we turn the walls on as it all falls into place. 62

LD: What control equipment did you use? JW: The show is driven off an [MA Lighting] grandMA2 light console. I am a very visual person, and I use layout views almost exclusively to program my shows. Being able to see your fixtures laid out as they are on stage and grab them with the lasso tool, or one by one, has greatly sped up my efficiency and workflow. Backstage lives our Apple Mac Mini and Roland V-40HD Video Switcher. We are running ArKaos Media Master Pro, a simple media server, but it suits our needs perfectly. Its small footprint and ease of programming have been fantastic on days when the band decided to add a new song to the night’s set that had never been played before. Being able to bang out both lighting and video for a new song in an hour or so was just great. The ArKaos is also driven off the MA2.

“Much of the show was fairly dark and minimalistic,” says Watrach.

EQUIPMENT LIST 1 MA Lighting grandMA2 light 8 GLP impression X4 Bar 20 2 Harman Martin Professional MAC Aura 2 ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr 1 ArKaos Media Master Pro 1 Roland V-40HD Multi-Format Live Video Switcher 1 Casio Long Throw Projector 1 NEC Short-Throw Wide-Angle Projector 2 Camera

JUNE 2016 \\\

RC4Wireless

Innovation Inspiration

Powerful. Wireless. Pixel Control.

RC4 Custom Pixel Profiles™ Off-load pattern replication from the DMX console to DMXpix drivers. Save up to 3000 channels, control up to 1000 pixels. Limited only by your imagination. Patent Pending.

Wide Voltage Input 5-35VDC RC4 ColorMatch™ for a consistent color palette between string types, manufacturers, control protocols, and variations in LED binning.

Each driver can drive up to 500 pixels Dual Multi-Protocol Pixel Drivers for a total of 1000 pixels controlled support all major pixel string from one tiny device. brands and protocols, incl. WS2801, WS2812, DMX, and many more. I2C/SPI data port for access with Ardunio, RasberryPi and other Selectable color order (RGB, RBG, GRB, GBR, BRG, BGR) for each microcontrollers. driver.

RC4 OneTouch™ No tiny dip-switches. Setup takes seconds. Wired or Wireless, DMX Controlled. RC4Magic Lifetime Warranty. With twenty-five years of experience, we stand behind every RC4Magic

Live Life Untethered. theatrewireless.com | wirelessdimming.com 1-866-258-4577 | moreinfo@theatrewireless.com

RC4Magic is sold with a lifetime warranty. Some exceptions apply. See website or call for details.

FE ATURE

Walk On The

RICHARD TERMINE

Wilde Side

RICK FISHER AND DALE FERGUSON DESIGN DAVID HAREâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S PL AY, THE JUDAS KISS /// BY ELLEN L AMPERT-GRE AUX

FE ATURE

nglish playwright Sir David Hare turns the clock back to the 19th century in The Judas Kiss, as he examines two pivotal moments in the life of Oscar Wilde. Also a prominent playwright of his day, Wilde’s life derailed, and he was imprisoned on charges of indecency that bucked the strictures of Victorian society. Written in 1998, this revival of The Judas Kiss was directed by Neil Armfield, with sets by Dale Ferguson, lighting by Rick Fisher, costumes by Sue Blane, and sound by Paul Groothuis, and has been performed in the UK, Canada, and the US.

I ALWAYS WANTED IT TO EXTEND OFF BEYOND THE FRAME OF THE VIEWER,” FERGUSON ADMITS. “ALL THINGS HAVE MORE MYSTERY IF ENTIRETY.

RICHARD TERMINE

YOU CAN’T SEE THEIR

The revival of The Judas Kiss featured sets by Dale Ferguson, lighting by Rick Fisher, costumes by Sue Blane, and sound by Paul Groothuis.

JUNE 2016 \\\

Recently seen at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, this production premiered in 2012 in London, where it transferred to the West End in 2013. Lead actor Rupert Everett (who evokes the very essence of Oscar Wilde) was said to give “the performance of his career” by The Guardian, giving this production the power to tour. In designing the sets, Ferguson took his initial inspiration from Hare’s description of the play’s opening heterosexual and erotic scene, set in a dark hotel room with black walls. “He describes in detail a crucifix-like tableau,” explains Ferguson, who created a massive canopy of brown velvet over the bed and spilling onto the floor for Act One. “This led Neil and I to create a hotel room that placed the bed as the strongest visual element and spine of the design. The majestic canopy over the bed was alterlike and gave it more visual status and a nod to the part the bed plays in the unfolding drama. The stakes were very high due to the bed. The texture of velvet was very sexy and together with the voluminous quantity, reflected the extravagance and fashion of 1890s London.” Ferguson found that, as the scale of the theatres where The Judas Kiss was performed increased, so did the volume and height of the drapery. “I always wanted it to extend off beyond the frame of the viewer,” he admits. “All things have more mystery if you can’t see their entirety.” 68

RICHARD TERMINE

FE ATURE

With the large swags of cloth—the brown velvet for the London hotel room and white muslin for Italy—Fisher found there was very little room for an overhead rig, primarily due to the angle of the walls and the volume of the cloths.

The swag of velvet fabric was chocolate brown, “dark chocolate,” says Ferguson. “I wanted to limit the palette of the room to help stylize it as much as possible.” He chose a fabric color that evoked the masculine, conservative club style of paneled rooms and heavy furniture. “It was also like a river of shit running through the room,” he adds, “a filthy Thames, with small exquisite items floating on it and surrounding

it. This contrasted well with the cool white of the sheets, linen, and clock face, as well as the silverware and nickel-plating of the bed.” Ferguson wanted to contain his color palette accordingly and was “delighted when Sue Blane made the inspired choice of putting Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred ‘Boise’ Douglas, in a powder-blue suit and everyone else in neutrals and browns. It was my favorite bit of simpatico,” he says. JUNE 2016 \\\

RICHARD TERMINE

FE ATURE

In Act Two, the mood shifts to a lighter sensibility, to illustrate both a color and texture shift in contrast to Act One, yet the goal was to create “a dark space to reflect a cave that Oscar seemed to be consigned to in his mind and where he sits in despair, despite the sundrenched descriptions of an autumn in Naples,” notes Ferguson. “The bed here was white and, though still prominent, reflected the diminished circumstances of the relationship between Wilde and Boise and their dire financial situation,” says Ferguson. “It was a humble day bed, with a canopy that could be draped fishing nets or a mosquito net. The white cloth was also a medium that could reflect the various detailed descriptions of changing light made by Oscar and the passage of time crucial to the drama. These were originating from an indirect source.”

THE BED HERE WAS WHITE AND, THOUGH STILL PROMINENT, REFLECTED THE DIMINISHED CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WILDE AND BOISE AND THEIR DIRE FINANCIAL SITUATION. DALE FERGUSON

JUNE 2016 \\\

The set morphed somewhat for the various iterations of the production, as Ferguson explains that the creative team didn’t want to reproduce walls that were an architectural representation of a hotel room, but rather a frame or canvas around the various elements of furniture. “The walls were actually a reproduction and adaption of the walls of the Belvoir Street Theatre in Australia, where the production originated,” he says. “The design was also conceived with one stagehand and an assistant stage manager to implement the interval set change, so this too became a case of the logistical 72

limits forcing the design to be distilled. These elements became so entrenched in the design that they continued to exist when no longer applicable or imposed. The biggest change to the set for me was in its final iteration, when I was able to buy the quality of furniture I thought it needed to create the Act One hotel room in a non-naturalistic design.” Did Oscar Wilde himself inform Ferguson’s choices? Yes, he says, noting Wilde’s “effortless flamboyance,” the very thing that got Wilde on the docket in the first place and perhaps what enticed Hare to write this play.

RICHARD TERMINE

FE ATURE

One challenge was taking a show that was designed for a studio theatre with 300 seats, and then playing it in a theatre with 2,400 seats and then an 850seat theatre in Brooklyn. Fisher defines his job as: “Making sure the show was not too bright but not too dark either!”

THE WALLS WERE ACTUALLY A REPRODUCTION AND ADAPTION OF THE WALLS OF THE BELVOIR STREET THEATRE IN AUSTRALIA, WHERE THE PRODUCTION ORIGINATED. DALE FERGUSON

JUNE 2016 \\\

RICHARD TERMINE

FE ATURE

Fisher’s color palette for the actors was pretty basic, with no color and Lee 202 (1/2 CTB). CARAVAGGIAN ILLUMINATION The 1999 production of The Judas Kiss in Australia was also directed by Neil Armfield and designed by Dale Ferguson, with lighting by Rory Dempster, who passed away in 2004. When the production was revived at the Hampstead Theatre in London in 2012, Rick Fisher was asked to light it, as he had worked with Armfield many years before. “The play starts with a very surprising bit of love-making between a male and female member of the hotel staff,” says Fisher. “We wanted this to be discreet, but beautiful, so the light for this comes from a small gap in the window upstage and to one side of the bed and some angled PAR cans outside this on the floor. It hopefully makes them look good without being too indecent, sort of Caravaggio porn!” To light the hotel room in which Wilde was arrested, Fisher notes that the light, while not naturalistic, “should seem appropriate and unremarkable, with a little reference to time passing in that upstage small window.” He almost missed a cue, between scenes. “There was a stage direction that I almost ignored, describing a light tracking around the set and illuminating various items left from the first scene before the very short second scene commences,” Fisher explains. “I think it may have been described as like the light of a lighthouse—not many of them in central London. Luckily, I did have a moving light overhead in case we really wanted to do this.

JUNE 2016 \\\

RICHARD TERMINE

FE ATURE

Turns out that the director was very intent on doing this in time with a composed piece of music, to help us show that some time had elapsed, and the effect worked beautifully to heighten the mood and the gravity of Wilde’s plight.” Fisher repeated this motif in the second act to show how time had passed and how Wilde’s situation had changed. “This was done by a [Harman] Martin Professional MAC TW1, such a wonderful fixture that I hope never goes out of production: quiet, beautiful, and a wonderful quality of light 76

that makes everything look good.” With the large swags of cloth—the brown velvet for the London hotel room and white muslin for Italy—Fisher found there was very little room for an overhead rig, primarily due to the angle of the walls and the volume of the cloths. “The black walls were not that well made in the original UK production, so I really tried to keep as much light off them as possible,” he confesses. “This had the bonus of making the performers stand out in the dark environment, and even though the set in the U.S.

Ferguson found that, as the scale of the theatres where The Judas Kiss was performed increased, so did the volume and height of the drapery.

and Canada was much better made and more worthy of light, we really tried to keep direct light off it.” Fisher notes that one of the other challenges was taking a show that was designed for a studio theatre with 300 seats, and then playing it in a theatre with 2,400 seats (even though 1,000 seats were blocked off in the Mirvish Theatre in Toronto, the lighting positions still remained the same), and then an 850-seat theatre in Brooklyn. He defines his job as, “making sure the show was not too bright but not too dark either.”

The rig was based on what the Hampstead Theatre had in stock, plus what the show could afford for a small hire fee and then could be toured. “We supplemented Hampstead’s rig with three TW1s, and we upped this for the U.S. tours by adding more TW1s and a few [Philips Vari-Lite] VL1000 Tungsten fixtures as we were in bigger houses and had some unusually shaped forestages to contend with, so I think we had a dozen moving Tungsten heads in the U.S.”

JUNE 2016 \\\

This was almost a totally tungsten-lit show, although Fisher did supplement the rig with a few ETC Selador Desire D40 LED PARs and ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr 36° EDLT fixtures. “We used the PARs to give us the called-for change of light, particularly for the Italian scene where we have a beautifully described sunset and dawn, both of which, with the magic of theatre, seemed to come into the balcony from the same direction.” Andy Murrell, Fisher’s associate on the show, chimes in that the D40 LED PAR fixtures “are now very good,” adding, “controlled by EOS and the color-picker, the mixed color is very close to a tungsten lamp with filter.” The Canadian and U.S. rig were supplied by Christie Lights and programmed on an ETC Eos console. “There were very few over-stage positions,” confirms Fisher. “We relied on an advance bar or truss and light from the boxes to give some shape to the performers, as there were no pipe end or sidelight options.” Fisher’s color palette for the actors was pretty basic, with no color and Lee 202 (1/2 CTB). “The sense of color for the differing times of day in the Italy scene was a mixture of the LED PARs charting a sunrise and sunset, and a few conventional PAR cans in some warm and cool colors,” he explains. “These faded very slowly. In fact, these lamps were probably fading up and down in a complex set of cues that were really refined just by trial and error over about 50% of Act Two. At one moment, one character brought on a hurricane lamp. In the UK, this was a practical pressurized gas ‘camping’ lamp with a specific greenish color, which we matched with Lee 213. In the U.S., we were not allowed this type of source, so the battery-operated prop had a much warmer light, and we used a more comparable gel to cheat the low angle light that prop gave off, giving the characters large shadows on the wall, which I always like!” New York Magazine’s Vulture.com summed it all up perfectly: “… gorgeous draperies, Wagnerian music, Caravaggian lighting, awesome nudity. It’s all Hare needed, and all Wilde would have wanted.”

RICHARD TERMINE

FE ATURE

Ferguson wanted to contain his color palette and was “delighted” when Sue Blane made the inspired choice of putting Wilde’s lover in a powder-blue suit and everyone else in neutrals.

JUNE 2016 \\\

This is almost a totally tungsten-lit show, supplemented with a few ETC Selador D40 LED Pars and ETC LED Lustra Source Fours.

RICHARD TERMINE

FE ATURE

The Judas Kiss Lighting Plot at BAM Harvey

Lighting Gear For Brooklyn Academy of Music 6 Harman Martin Professional MAC TW1 (Narrow Lens) 2 Harman Martin Professional MAC TW1 (Standard Lens) 5 Philips Vari-Lite VL1000TS 8 ETC Selador Desire D40 4 ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr 36° EDLT 6 Chroma-Q 8" Scroller 1 MDG Atmosphere II Hazer Conventional Fixtures (From BAM Stock) 2 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal 10°

24 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal 14° 2 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal 19° 50 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal 26° 34 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal 36° 4 ETC Source Four PAR WFL 17 PAR 64 MFL 1kW 4 Fresnel 8" 2kW with Barndoor 2 Fresnel 12" 5kW with Barndoor Control System (House System) 1 ETC EOS Console 1 ETC RPU Backup JUNE 2016 \\\

FE ATURE

Star Light Star Bright BRIGHT STAR SHINES ON BROADWAY

NICK STOKES

/// BY S TE V EN B AT TA GLI A

FE ATURE

Japhy Weideman strove to light Bright Star as if it were a sepiatoned picture from the past.

NICK STOKES

pening this spring on Broadway to rave reviews, Bright Star—Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s original and uplifting new musical—transports its audience from the Cort Theatre on 47th Street to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. Responsible for this transformation is a dynamic group of creatives, including set designer Eugene Lee, lighting designer Japhy Weideman, and sound designer Nevin Steinberg. Live Design spoke with these designers about their process, design inspiration, and experience in working on the show. Bright Star’s set is simple and sparse by design with a unique deck, a structure in which the onstage bluegrass musicians can perform, an upstage brick wall, and a handful of props. Lee says his biggest challenge in designing the set was deciding where to put the band. “I decided to put them in a mobile, little house—a skeletal cabin—and let the actors push it around,” he explains. “I like it better than automation.” Preferring the humanistic quality over automation, the cast is responsible for manipulating the house, creating different scenes and tableaux throughout the musical. “It’s worked out pretty well,” adds Lee. “The actors push it; they do everything, every piece of furniture moving around. I give them credit because they did a terrific

Bright Star lighting plot

job.” When more musicians were added to the cast, Lee decided to add balconies, or galleries, on either side of the stage for them. The upstage wall of the set is a phony brick wall. “Even that is done in a very simple way,” Lee states. “We just wanted the most neutral and simple element. It really has no major details to it.” The stage deck was an element that the design team had to contend with. Originally constructed out of yellow hard pine with a 6’’ tongue-and-groove, it started to get beat up by the furniture and house being pushed around on it. “Since things didn’t have castors, we put little pieces of rug on the bottom of say a bench, so you can just push it around, and when it stops, it

doesn’t need special brakes.” After the original deck started to show signs of cracking, Lee decided to lay a new, stronger deck constructed from a harder laminate on top of it. “It made it really smooth, and that has held up really well,” the set designer says. LD Weideman became involved with Bright Star when director Walter Bobbie reached out to him. “We just sat and talked at his apartment about various art, shows, and other aspects of life that inspire us,” Weideman says. “It was a natural and casual conversation; I immediately felt a sense of kinship with Walter, and I’m happy to say that’s lasted throughout the entire two and a half years of this process. And once I listened to the music, I immediately fell in

JUNE 2016 \\\

FE ATURE

NICK STOKES

ONE SYSTEM THAT I DO RELY ON HEAVILY IS A LOW BOX SIDELIGHT SYSTEM, WITH ONLY A FEW LIGHTS FROM EACH SIDE HUNG ON THE LOW BOX FRONTOF-HOUSE TO SCULPT THE ACTORS AND ‘POP’ THEIR FACES WITH A GLOW. JAPHY WEIDEMAN 86

Nevin Steinberg explored North Carolina, researching and recording natural sound effects that were used throughout the production.

love with it. Then, when I learned that the story takes place in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, where I was born and raised, I knew I had to be involved.” The direction he was given was to tell the story in a simple, smart, and genuine fashion. “[Bobbie] did not want any scenery to be literal, only suggestive and, at the same time, playful,” says Weideman. “He wanted everything to already exist on stage from the beginning, thus creating a theatrical space in which actors consciously tell the story to the audience. Josh Rhodes’ choreography moves the action, time, and locale. The actors move the set and furniture, through a kind of storytelling ballet, if you will, creating each scene. As you can imagine, the lighting must beautifully tie all these movements of time and space.” Describing his systems, Weideman says that there are systems of backlight, high

sides, low boom sides, and front box boom keylight washes, but he rarely has anything turned on as a complete system. “One system that I do rely on heavily is a low box sidelight system, with only a few lights from each side hung on the low box frontof-house to sculpt the actors and ‘pop’ their faces with a glow,” he says, adding that the production relies heavily on Philips VariLite VL3500 Wash fixtures from overhead as a strong single source backlight. “We have eight in the plot,” he says, noting that he loves the lights because of their brightness. “They can cut through anything and always give the actors a godly, divine rim,” he says. Weideman also has 13 Philips VariLite VL3500 Spots overhead, with VL1000 Arcs to create clouds for the white mountain sky drop that makes appearances throughout the show. “By putting breakup templates into them and running the JUNE 2016 \\\

FE ATURE

WEIDEMAN STATES HIS BACKGROUND GROWING UP ON A FARM IN THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS OF NORTH CAROLINA INSPIRED HIS DESIGN PROCESS.

NICK STOKES

Eugene Lee designed a simple, sparse set with a unique cabin structure in which the onstage bluegrass musicians perform.

focus soft, we managed to create very realistic clouds that could slowly shift color throughout the scenes,” the lighting designer says. “Also in conjunction with these, we have Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlaze TR4s and [Harman Martin Professional] MAC Auras to color the sky drop. It’s the combo of these three different lights that results in an ever-changing skyscape.” The show uses an ETC Eos console, programmed by Colin Scott. Justin Partier is Weideman’s associate LD, with Kate Bashore acting as assistant LD, and Dan Coey as production electrician. Lighting was supplied by PRG. Weideman states his background growing up on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina inspired his design process. “I was always outside,” he says. “I can’t tell you how many Carolina sunrises and sunsets I experienced growing up there. Those mountains and sky are my core driving force to this day. Living in New York, there’s not a moment I don’t miss the great Blue Ridge Mountains, but it’s through the practice of lighting that I keep that life-force alive. This project handed it all to me on a silver platter.” Weideman’s desire was to keep the color of the show to the full range of white light, wanting the production to look like a picture from the past, “sepia-toned and aged with warmth, while also having the surprise of becoming coldly stark and angular in the more dramatically tense moments,” he describes. “Regarding color, it always starts with shades of white. Of course, there are many shades of white from low Kelvin 2,900 amber tones—6’’ Fresnels on low booms—to high Kelvin blues—Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash, at 5,000 to 6,500 Kelvin. I attempted to keep it in the full range of white, with one exception in Act Two for ‘Pour Me Another Round,’ where we were inspired by 1940s neon and lit the bar in saturated blue and pink, but this scene was the only rule-breaker.

JUNE 2016 \\\

FE ATURE

By sidelighting the cabin, Weideman was able to create beautiful, natural shadow patterns.

NICK STOKES

“There are musical moments in this show that soar to a height so beautiful it feels almost gospel,” Weideman exclaims. “I kept seeing arrays of warm, divine beams of light as I listened to the tracks. So I implemented many rows of PAR ACLs, carefully focused in various beam patterns that could be used in different ways throughout the show, and as the cueing moved forward, they were always there to turn on at just the right moments. The beams of light that ACLs create with the use of MDG haze are stunningly beautiful, warm, aged, and godly.” Weideman also calls attention to his lighting of the cabin, the central set piece. “By sidelighting the cabin, I was able to

create many beautiful, natural shadow patterns across the space, and in the air, we used a thin layer of haze throughout. I strongly believe it’s always more interesting to create real shadows by shooting light through objects on stage, rather than using templates.” A vital piece of the storytelling process which transforms the stage from day to night and from the city to the country is the white mountain cyc. Weideman describes the drop as a “flat piece of stretched white muslin with the bottom cut out in the shape of a Blue Ridge Mountain horizon line. This flies in front of the brick back wall of the set. In addition, we have a black mountain piece that

is the same shape/size of the white mountain drop that can fly in front of it, creating a line of light on the horizon that, in effect, expands and contracts.” Steinberg became involved with the production’s sound design early on in the process, receiving an initial draft of the script in 2013. “I loved the story and the surprises in it,” he says. “I was particularly excited to join a team of designers whom I admire but had little experience with: Eugene Lee, costume designer Jane Greenwood, and Japhy Weideman.” Starting his design process during a developmental workshop in 2014, Steinberg describes how knowing early on in the process that the band would be

moved around the stage within the scenic house helped the team arrive at design decisions. “We were able to begin to discuss those challenges in terms of reinforcement and monitoring right from the get-go,” he says. “That was also when I started to think about the soundscape for the show, not only the delivery system, but also the environmental sounds to bring to the piece. After the workshop, a full production was mounted at The Old Globe in San Diego and following that, an out-of-town tryout at The Kennedy Center, before coming to Broadway. “My team and I had a few opportunities to try things out, refine ideas, and develop a relationship

JUNE 2016 \\\

FE ATURE

Bright Star lighting plot

with the material and the people,” Stein- very important: The show is also an early berg explains. “I think that this depth of adopter of Clear-Com’s HelixNet system connection and familiarity really comes on Broadway. For an audio nerd like me, through in the final product in all depart- this is a great package. I’m very grateful to ments.” our producers and managers, and to our Steinberg details his variety of equip- vendor, Masque Sound and Recording, ment choices on this show. “The Bright for helping me get what I wanted to make Star loudspeaker system is composed this system happen.” The production uses largely of Alcons Audio equipment for a DiGiCo SD10-T console for front-ofthe mains and most delays. This is the house and monitors, and a Meyer Sound company’s first major deployment on D-Mitri system for loudspeaker processBroadway. We are also using some other ing. interesting, new equipment that I’ve had The Bright Star band consists of those my eye on for a while as well: K-Array members on stage and in the added galspeakers for front fills and apron moni- leries. On stage there is an upright piano, toring, and the onstage band is miked played by the musical director who douentirely using Sennheiser’s System 9000 bles on accordion, a fiddle player, an KENbut TABACHNICK Digital Wireless. A little less sexy, upright bass player, a guitarist who plays

Bright Star lighting plot

steel string acoustic, electric, and archtop, and a banjo player who plays two banjos and steel string guitar. On the stage left and right galleries, there is a mandolin player who also plays another steel string guitar, a cello player, a violin/viola player, a drummer/percussionist, and a keyboard player who also plays autoharp and accordion. “The orchestrations by August Eriksmoen are masterful,” says Steinberg. Researching and recording sound effects for the show was an explorative process for Steinberg. “I realized I didn’t really know what [the Blue Ridge Mountains and surrounding areas] should feel and sound like,” he explains. “So I took a trip in June of 2014 to visit some locations and do field recording for the show. I started in Raleigh and then traveled to Zebulon. I made some night vis-

its to a swampy, isolated area between Zebulon and Raleigh in an effort to recreate the fictional Hays Creek in the play, and then I went west to Asheville and got up into the mountains for a few days. It was a great trip, and I was able to experience some really wonderful environmental sounds, many of which have made it into the show and all of which have influenced my work on the production. Almost every outdoor scene in the show has some unique environment playing, and they all have components of the recordings I made during my visits to the woods, ponds, and mountains of North Carolina. I think it contributes to the ‘hand-crafted’ feel of the production, and I’m tickled every time I hear them. I’ve been told a number of times by native North Carolinians that the unique soundscapes remind them of home.” JUNE 2016 \\\

FE ATURE

Bright Star lighting plot

Faced with the challenge of working with the mobile band and remote satellite sections in the galleries, Steinberg explains that what could have been a frustration was instead “tricky, but tons of fun.” He shares his appreciation for his team, which he calls “very special. The sound engineer for San Diego, DC, and on Broadway is an old friend, Scott Sanders. Backstage, I am lucky to have Jake Scudder and Karen Zabinski, and at my side were my assistant Elize Simon and my longtime associate Jason Crystal: aces, all.” It’s clear that the design team truthfully and thoroughly enjoyed their time on this project. Effusive about the working process, Lee says, “One thing worth saying about this production, which is not always true, is that it was a terrific group of people! I can’t think of a bad thing to say about anyone. I’m making it sound too good to be true, 94

but it really was that good.” Weideman shares Lee’s sentiments on working with the Bright Star team. “No challenges, only pure joy. The people on this production—Walter, Edie, Steve, Josh, and all of the designers—are the most positive, focused, fun, and encouraging group of artists any lighting designer could ever ask to work with. While it was hard work, it was pure pleasure to be in a room where we could freely share our ideas with each other, and all of these players have so much to offer.” Steven Battaglia has worked in theatre production and operations for more than 12 years. He has been the operations manager at Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York for the last six years and also works as a production manager and lighting designer in his spare time.

BRENDON THORNE, GETTY IMAGES

Q & A

Many

LIGHTS Many

NIGHTS MANDYLIGHTS ILLUMINATES FIVE INSTALLATIONS AT VIVID SYDNEY 2016 /// BY MEGH A N PERK INS A ND K ATINK A A LLENDER

Q & A

BRENDON THORNE, GETTY IMAGES

“FOR THE FIRST TIME, VIVID CAME TO TARONGA ZOO AND THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, SYDNEY, WHICH ARE CELEBRATING THEIR CENTENARY AND BICENTENARY, RESPECTIVELY.“ 98

“Cathedral Of Light” comprised 70,000 custom-made bud lights.

or 23 nights during the Southern Hemisphere winter, more than 1.7 million people wandered a number of locations in Sydney, Australia, admiring and interacting with countless installations that combine into the world’s largest festival of light, music, and ideas known as Vivid Sydney. Now in its eighth year and produced by Destination NSW, Vivid ran from May 27 to June 18, with 91 lighting and projection events dispersed across popular buildings and locations in Sydney, including Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera

House, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Central Park, Walsh Bay, and Sydney Harbor. For the first time, Vivid came to Taronga Zoo and The Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney, which are celebrating their centenary and bicentenary, respectively. Live Design chats with Mandylights co-founder and owner Richard Neville about the company’s presence at this year’s Vivid, including their installations at these two new, iconic locations. JUNE 2016 \\\

LIVE DESIGN: Tell us a little about the technology deployed at each site at this year’s Vivid Sydney. RICHARD NEVILLE: We had five activations across Vivid Sydney this year: CATHEDRAL OF LIGHT: This was a 70m [229’] long tunnel-like installation that guests could walk through. In essence, it’s really simple: 70,000 custom-made bud lights with floral surrounds that don’t change color. The whole structure just had this beautiful, warm, and inviting glow to it. The design concept behind the Cathedral really embodies my approach to light artworks: Things don’t need to be dripping in state-of-the-art technology to have a profound impact on visitors. WILL-O-THE-WISPS: The wisps were made up of nearly 2,000 plastic forms that were individually, internally illuminated by tiny little RGB LED pixels. The entire installation had been laid out to mirror the shape of the major branches of the enormous Moreton Bay Fig Tree that hung above the artwork. Each pixel was placed on a pixel map on a [PRG] MBox media server, which then played back a range of custom content over each night to simulate a magical field of luminous beings that appear and disappear under the tree.

100

BRENDON THORNE, GETTY IMAGES

Q & A

Will-O-The-Wisps was laid out to mirror the shape of the major branches of the Moreton Bay Fig Tree that hung above the artwork.

JUNE 2016 \\\ 101

Q & A

Mandylights lit a mile-long pathway throughout Taronga Zoo, using nearly a thousand lighting fixtures.

CAMERON SPENCER, GETTY IMAGES

TARONGA ZOO: Mandylights lit almost a mile-long pathway throughout the zoo, using nearly a thousand lighting fixtures, everything from custom-made laser arrays through to [Clay Paky] Sharpys, and over a hundred big outdoor LED units. We had dual roles to create some amazing creative installations in addition to themed pathway lighting. TOTEM FOREST: On George Street in the middle of the Sydney Central Business District, we designed an installation for transport for NSW that consists of 18 three-meter-high pillars of light, each wrapped in a unique color printed decal that creates four clusters of totem poles.

Visitors could interact with the installation by hitting any of the three electronic drum pads in front of each of the clusters, which affected things like color and movement. VISITING HOURS: In the middle of Kings Cross, “Visiting Hours” was an experimental theatre project staged across five levels of an old hotel in Sydney’s red-light district. Guests were toured through an old hospital, and our lighting reinvented the old levels and helped turn the spaces into a very unsettling artwork. We used dozens of old flickering fluro tubes, beacons, and hidden atmospheric effects to add to the terror of the experience.

BRENDON THORNE, GETTY IMAGES

“Cathedral Of Light” was a 70m (229’) long tunnel-like installation.

Q & A

LD: What are some of the trends in how festivals, concerts, and other entertainment applications are using lighting? RN: I think we’re seeing people starting to use interactivity and light in new, inventive ways. It’s no longer enough just to ask people to hit a button and see a color change. After eight years of Vivid, people expect more than that. They want things to react to their emotions and actions in different ways, but they also want to be affected by the installations, too. In its early years, Vivid was all about making things colorful. Nowadays, the festival has matured, and it’s fantastic to see more installations that engage visitors and leave them making comments like, “What do you think this meant?” or “This made me feel amazing.”

104

BRENDON THORNE, GETTY IMAGES

LD: What were the project challenges? RN: Outdoors at Vivid, the weather is always a challenge. Sydney can go from beautiful 26° Celsius [79°F] sunshine to freezing rain and gale force winds in a matter of hours, so installations have to be able to withstand almost every form of weather. With around 1.7 million guests coming to the festival this year, we also had to do a lot of ongoing maintenance. If you have something within arm’s reach of people, you essentially have to assume that those people might reach out and touch it. So everything has to have a certain amount of resilience built into it.

Guests could walk through the tunnel-like installation that was “Cathedral Of Light.”

JUNE 2016 \\\ 105

Q & A

BRENDON THORNE, GETTY IMAGES

The custom lights had floral surrounds that did not change color.

LD: Do these facilities see lighting as key to increasing visitors and engaging audiences? In other words, what do they see as a business case for investing in lighting? RN: Absolutely, Vivid is a shining example, if you’ll excuse the pun, on how amazing lighting installations can draw crowds of millions into a major urban precinct in the middle of winter, when there is essentially no other reason to be in the city. Video of Taronga Zoo 106

LD: Describe the lighting market in Australia. How is it distinct from the US or Europe? RN: Our domestic market is very closed. It’s difficult to break into, difficult to progress in, and the entertainment market is certainly heavily guarded by a few older players. I’ve found work in the US and Europe a lot more receptive to talent or interesting ideas, but that’s slowly changing in Australia, which is fantastic to see.

BRENDON THORNE, GETTY IMAGES

The PRG MBox media server played back a range of custom content each night to simulate the magical field of luminous beings.

LD: Who have been your biggest influencers? RN: I have a really diverse set of influencers, which I think helps me really work across multiple disciplines. I admire James Turrell’s light artworks and have huge respect for Josef Svoboda’s opera designs. When I was six, my parents took me to West End shows in London that were designed by Richard Pilbrow and David Hersey, and I still look up to them to this day as two of the most amazing designers with hugely successful long-term careers. Names aside, I always have a heap of respect for people who are passionate about their art. The teams from Comix and The Art of Light are just a couple of similarly-minded creative companies that I really respect and look to for influence.

Q & A

“Will-O-The-Wisps” was made up of nearly 2,000 plastic forms that were internally, individually illuminated by tiny RGB LED pixels.

LD: What’s next for your company? RN: We’ve been moving rapidly into show and production design, taking our technical design skills and integrating them into whole show designs with choreography, staging, and musical and creative direction. It very much feels like the next step for us, and our whole team is really looking forward to a few big things we’re working on for late 2016 and throughout 2017.

BRENDON THORNE, GETTY IMAGES

LD: What is your biggest achievement thus far? RN: Aside from running a lighting business and getting paid (most) weeks for the last ten years, I think designing the main stage at Ultra Music Festival in 2013 was one of my biggest achievements. It was a great team with a fantastic group of designers, technicians, and artists. We produced a defining stage and design that was highly respected and we were all very proud of.

IT WAS A GREAT TEAM WITH A FANTASTIC GROUP OF DESIGNERS, TECHNICIANS, AND ARTISTS. WE PRODUCED A DEFINING STAGE AND DESIGN THAT WAS HIGHLY RESPECTED AND WE WERE ALL VERY PROUD OF.

RICHARD NEVILLE

JUNE 2016 \\\ 109

Congrats to the Winners! Abe Jacob

Award Sponsored by:

for a legendary career in sound design

Natasha Katz

Award Sponsored by:

for sustained achievement in theatrical lighting design

Beowulf Boritt for innovation in scenic design

Award Sponsored by:

Laura Frank

for excellence in media technology

Full Flood

for the best in live broadcast lighting Photo credit: Getty Images, Kevin Winter

Award Sponsored by:

110

Award Sponsored by:

Seven Design Works

(LeRoy Bennett, Cory FitzGerald, and Tobias Rylander) for creativity in design collaboration

BUILD ///

PROBLEM/SOLUTION

SEEING RED Painting The Stage For Red (Or Not) In Various Productions

TODD ROSENTHAL

/// BY DAV I N A POLEON

JUNE JUNE2016 2016 \\\ 111

PROBLEM/SOLUTION

n John Loganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Red, an historical two-hander about painter Mark Rothko and his assistant, the characters paint a massive work on stage. The entire action takes place in Rothkoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s studio, a converted gymnasium in a YWCA on the Bowery in New York. After the play opened at the Donmar Warehouse in London in 2009 and transferred to Broadway, designers as far away as Tokyo and Chile and in theatres throughout the U.S. have been seeing red, but not always in the same way.

112 TODD ROSENTHAL

Goodman Theatre/Arena Stage co-production of Red

JOSH LAMKIN

South Coast Repertory

SOUTH COAST REPERTORY

R alph Funicello had always been a Rothko fan. “I knew his work, but not the context,” says the scenic designer who began researching before his first meeting with director David Emmes for South Coast Rep’s production in Costa Mesa, CA. Was a realistic studio essential? “You really could do this play with just paintings hung in a void,” Funicello reflects. “There’s

a lot about the way the play jumps around that’s not literal, but the director did want to flesh the play out with a real space.” So they settled on a plan: Make the studio look real, and at the same time, make it feel like it was itself a Rothko painting. Although Rothko needed a large space so he could see the paintings next to one another and the Segerstrom Stage at South Coast Rep is large, the team didn’t want the

studio to be too large or white, as in the original. “I tried to make the space seem smaller, so it would not dwarf the actors,” Funicello says. He used natural red brick walls, but the props, down to the period Maxwell House coffee cans that Rothko mixed paint in—the kind you open with a key—were based on the research. The two-by-fours that held Rothko’s canvases were attached to pulleys to raise and lower the paintJUNE 2016 \\\ 113

PROBLEM/SOLUTION

Rothko’s canvases were attached to pulleys to raise and lower the paintings and reposition them in configurations.

RALPH FUNICELLO

ings and reposition them in configurations that allowed the artist to see what they might look like in the Four Seasons restaurant at the Seagram Building. Funicello replicated Rothko’s large rolling easel. “We chose to put a large painting on that easel,” says Funicello. There were also three imaginary paintings 114

hanging down stage on the fourth wall. Fu n i c e l l o i n i t i a l l y planned to create fake Rothkos, widening stripes or changing the size or shape of a painting, until the theatre’s lawyers got involved. “There is a not very clear requirement in the script that says what you can and what you can’t

do,” says Funicello. “You could read this meaning that you have to copy them accurately and pay an enormous amount to the Rothko estate or that you can’t copy them.” The theatre paid the fee, and the shop copied a Rothko, one from the Seagram collection that vibrates in the way the play describes. This had to be

South Coast Repertory

RALPH FUNICELLO

destroyed at the end of the run. Another restriction: Paintings could not be sold, not even as copies. The props department ignored the Rothko paint recipe. Funicello found a “glaring inconsistency” in it and thought it might explode if he had actually added linseed oil or turpentine to the paint mix

the artist once cooked in a double boiler. Instead, they talked to people who had done the show at other theatres to find a formula that could be used to paint vigorously and that would dry quickly, without streaking, and wash out of costumes easily. Fu n i c el l o’s re a d i ng revealed other inconsis-

tencies. The gym had been turned into a pool before it was used as a studio, but nowhere was a record of a conversion back into a gym or room. It was also unclear where the gym was in the building. After studying photos, Funicello determined it was in the back. “One of my goals was to not see any black masking overJUNE 2016 \\\ 115

head, Funicello says. “I didn’t put a full ceiling on this because I figured out how to mask it with a big beam. Connecting walls on high allowed Tom [Ruzika, lighting designer] to light it from above. We found wonderful old scoops. I hung a pipe with three scoops on it because I figured Tom would want to hang them high, aside from the two on the floor.” Without creating the exact glazes Rothko used to get colors to vibrate, lights had to do the job. By bringing up light on five upstage paintings and the Rothko on an easel that came in during a blackout, “the paintings almost vibrated off the wall,” says Funicello. Ruzika aimed to create the kind of light Rothko would have worked in, with the raw scoops on high. “We made it look like studio space with high windows and lighting coming from scoops,” says the designer, who used these work lights to keep tight focus on actors so it didn’t spill over onto the paintings hung on the surrounding walls. That reality gave the team a chance to “have a big payoff when Rothko turns on the overhead fluorescent lights, and you see the art in the raw light. There were gasps from the audience,” recalls Ruzika, who only used red in the last moments of the play. “When Rothko and his assistant start base-coating the canvas in red, a little lavender light helped the red paint pop out. There was no further red light until those last seconds, when we really move into his mind.” Sound design for the production was by Cricket Myers, with costumes by Fred Kinney. 116

STEPHEN A’COURT

PROBLEM/SOLUTION

There was no further red light until those last seconds, when we really move into his mind. TOM RUZIKA

Red at South Coast Repertory

A performance of Red

GOODMAN THEATRE/ ARENA STAGE

When Todd Rosenthal began to design the play for Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, he knew the production would transfer to the Arena Stage in DC. He set out to tame the Goodman’s large, wide Albert Theatre, then concluded that a play with large ideas could handle a large vessel, if the proportions were right. This would work for the Arena, too, “which lends itself to a really soaring set,” he says, noting that the theatre is famous for Ming Cho Lee’s mountain for K2. Rosenthal set out to approximate the Rothko studio, with its green Adirondack chair and canvases strewn about. The roaming easel appeared in this production, too. “We purchased a scent generator and filled the theatre with smell of turpentine,” he says. Although Rothko had used an organic paint medium, the props people found it didn’t work as well as latex, which was easier to prepare and yielded a richer color. White walls, true to the studio, made the red pop from the painting, which rested in a frame within a frame. The production required a new canvas for every performance. “There’s no way to get red paint out of a canvas without it turning pink,” says Rosenthal, who had to repaint the floor mid-run because it became pink. JUNE 2016 \\\ 117

Rosenthal set out to approximate the Rothko studio, with its green Adirondack chair and canvases strewn about.

TODD ROSENTHAL

Rosenthal gave lighting designer Keith Parham a ceiling, so he could hang practicals. “Rothko used to move fixtures around on poles with lights. He wanted the paintings dimly lit,” says Rosenthal, who adds that the Tate Gallery did a dimly lit Rothko show, but this production of Red, like South Coast’s, ended with a big surprise. In a dark angular room with very steep windows, Rothko and his assistant were engaged in a strange conversation 118

when a flash of fluorescent light “obliterated everything and created magic [by illuminating the painting and making it glow],” Rosenthal recalls. The magic maker, Parham, says he took his cue from Rosenthal and director Robert Falls. “We were looking at where Rothko painted and recreated that with very high walls and very few windows; he really darkened his space and used just a couple of incandescent lamps when he was

painting. We approached it very naturalistically,” says Parham, who helped the team create a cool white world. He used two large scoops on rolling stands for most of the show—“It took a while to tech it,” he says—and other practicals. Sometimes, light filtered in through the windows. “At the Goodman, we have these very steep boom box positions very close to the stage,” says Parham. “The set was decently downstage, and the frame holding

Paint choreography for Red

JR BRUCE

Red at International City Theatre

Goodman Theatre/Arena Stage co-production of Red

TODD ROSENTHAL

the paintings was pretty far downstage. It was very large; they never moved it, so lighting paintings from the box booms, 25’ or 30’ up in the air and coming at an extreme angle, I had reds and purples and oranges in them, and we were able to shoot them at the painting. You weren’t able to perceive that it was light on the painting because of how steep it was. Actors were able to walk to the canvas and not get caught in light at all. The paintings truly glowed like they were alive. We could brighten it or dim it or bring it more into the foreground without the audience being able to perceive that it was actually being painted.” Scenic painters also provided some paintings inspired by the Rothkos. “It was such a simple show,” adds Parham. “Those are the three gestures: a little light through windows, scoops and box booms, and one moment where he turned the fluorescents on in the space.” Sound design was by Richard Woodbury, with costumes by Birgit Rattenborg Wise.

JR BRUCE

Red at International City Theatre

JUNE 2016 \\\ 119

White walls, true to the studio, made the red pop from the painting, which rested in a frame within a frame.

JR BRUCE

INTERNATIONAL CITY THEATRE

JR Bruce came to scenic design with a background in studio art and connected to Rothko’s world at once. Working on a tall, wide but shallow modified thrust at the International City Theatre in Long Beach, CA, his goal was to explore the symbolic as well as the real elements of Roth120

ko’s studio. “The story that Logan leads you on is more than about this one person. We wanted to elevate this world,” says Bruce. “I never felt super-constrained by his studio. I picked [from real elements] what resonated with our vision.” Bruce began by researching Rothko’s work and life during the period he worked on the Seagram paintings.

He discovered the converted YWCA at 222 Bowery had housed other artists over the years, including William S. Burroughs, but what interested him even more was “thinking about the studio as a converted space.” Rothko talked about the sanctity of art and saw himself as a high priest. The gym, he noticed, had tall vaulted windows, reminiscent of

The production of Red at International City Theatre featured scenic design by JR Bruce and lighting by Donna Ruzika.

a cathedral, windows the painter had blocked so he could control the light. Bruce focused on the windows and how they framed the space, and on a glowing skylight. “Rothko describes himself as the Apollo of art, a dependable figure, where Jackson Pollack was wild, undependable, and Dionysus,” says Bruce, who used horizontal elements to suggest the Dio-

nysian, vertical Apollonian. He designed the floor to look like a basketball court with light wooden tones and splattered it to suggest a Pollack, creating the look of a realistic art studio simultaneously. Formal free-floating windows and the works themselves were vertical. Apart from the paintings and the f loor, there was not much color in

the set. Bruce wanted the paintings, which were not reproductions but amalgamations inspired by styles Rothko used at different times, to be central. Three paintings, in addition to the empty canvas, came in and out on rolling frames. He also wanted the space itself to mirror Rothko’s progression as a person, becoming darker as he JUNE 2016 \\\ 121

JR BRUCE

Bruce focused on the gym’s tall vaulted windows, reminiscent of a cathedral, and how they framed the space, and on a glowing skylight.

aged. “Donna painted the cyc and gave the windows a glow,” says Bruce, who left coloring the set mainly to lighting designer Donna Ruzika. “Depending on Donna’s light, [the skylight] could be heavy and oppressive or luminous and grand.” “The placement of the windows was helpful to create a look of natural light coming into the space,” adds Ruzika. “This made it easy to set the various times of day required in the play. The window design also created shadows on the stage floor, and that, combined with various gobos, helped give Rothko’s studio both a light and dark quality, which mirrored the play.” She used amber and blue downlight, very light lavender sidelight, warm pink frontlight, and 122

warm washes of a darker amber at different times. Gobos helped her break up the space, and a set of deep red gobos, mixed with other gobos and colors, helped bring out the red in the paintings and the room. Instead of lighting the full stage, she used subtle moments of isolation several times, for instance to emphasize the two characters when Rothko and his apprentice are furiously painting. Directed by Caryn Desai, this production featured sound by Dave Mickey, costumes Kim DeShazo, and Patty Briles on props.

Red at International City Theatre

Props designer Monika Essen let the floor evolve over the course of the run, collecting layers and layers of red paint.

Goodman crews repainted their floor to keep the look consistent, but at the (now defunct) Performance Network Theatre in Ann Arbor, scenic, costume, and props designer Monika Essen let it evolve. It started clean, but never pristine, and by the time the run was finished, the floor was layered with the red paint actors had used to paint the Rothko. “By the end, the whole set took on this luminosity,” she says. Essen, who also served as scenic artist and assistant director, wanted to envelope the audience in the Rothkos and enclose Rothko in his work. “I wanted to use the characteristics that he used in his paintings, color, structure, and space, to create the studio,” says Essen. “I started with a white background because that’s so typical of artists’ studios, including my own. You can see what you’re working on more clearly.” Rothko’s green Adirondack chair stood out, the only color outside the reds, oranges, yellows, and purples that appeared on the paintings. “We started with a few paintings on tracks so he could move them and work with them. They were all works in progress,” says Essen. “He worked on many of them at once. I had them reveal more and more as the play progressed until the end when they surrounded him in his own studio.” Essen taught the actors how to paint like Rothko, whose approach to a canvas was unique, and painted several works for the set herself, inspired by Rothkos.

MONIKA ESSEN

PERFORMANCE NETWORK: A STAGE IN PROGRESS

JUNE 2016 \\\ 123

TODD ROSENTHAL

Goodman Theatre/Arena Stage co-production of Red

124

She researched the pigments he used but settled on acrylic paint for ease and drying speed. Audiences who see the work from the distance of several rows don’t see it as museum visitors do, she realized, but light could help create the Rothko glow and vibrations. Lighting designer Justin Lang became involved in the process sooner than he normally would, adding to the discussion during the first days in the rehearsal room, instead of responding to a run-through. He made blocking notes because Rothko controlled the light, dragging practicals over the stage as he moved and created value sketches that suggested the smaller shadow of a person on a painting and larger shadows on a wall. “A lot of cues were actor-reliant,” says Lang. Lang used mostly blues and yellows. “When the assistant opened the door, you were blasted by blue light. Inside, Rothko would sit in a yellow light; the sun would come in and have a bluish quality. I didn’t end up using any red,” he says. Carla Milarch directed this production, and sound was designed by Will Myers.

Red at Theatrical Outfit

JOSH LAMKIN

THEATRICAL OUTFIT

When talks began for Red at Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta, lighting designer Joseph A. Futral wanted to take a minimalist approach. “There’s a lot of flexibility in the way the play is written,” says Futral, who saw the painting as a third character. Futral says director David de Vries didn’t want the production to be didactic; he wanted it to be about the relationship between Rothko and his apprentice, and he favored a realistic design.

Scenic designer Lee Maples says de Vries loved the windows in Rothko’s studio and felt it was essential to have some of the Seagram murals on the set. “The actual windows were around 8’ tall from what I remember,” says Maples, who placed four similarly-styled windows in the center of the set that were about 2’ tall, capturing “the flavor of the larger windows.” With the help of props designer Props Maclare

“MC” Park, Maples collected antique tools and sundries of the sort Rothko would have, including an old milk jug. “He shopped at flea markets. He wasn’t snobbish about the brushes he used,” says Maples, who dripped paint off the edge of the counter and made cup rings on furniture pieces, the stuff of a real studio. Some of Rothko’s actual canvases were so large, they couldn’t have gotten them into the theatre, so Maples tried to achieve “just the JUNE 2016 \\\ 125

PROBLEM/SOLUTION

JOSH LAMKIN

Without creating the exact glazes Rothko used to get colors to vibrate, lights had to do the job.

feel of them.” He paid homage to Rothko’s elaborate pulley system by rigging a canvas so an actor could hoist it onto a ledge. The assistant could go up the ladder and pull the canvas down. Paintings that adorned the stage were in different stages of completion. Maples created a period floor of aged pine, heavily stained with paint spatters and bucket rings. “There were no seats anywhere on the set,” he says, explaining that an actor could sit on a stereo console if needed, but the area was meant to be a working studio. The walls were a brick pattern, red but toned down significantly with black. Futral used a vibrant palette, inspired by de Kooning, Klee, Kandinsky, and others. “Rothko blocked light,” says Futral. “I tried to reflect the struggle he was having when 126

the light intruded. There were moments when paintings would glow, moments when the studio would glow. I wanted the studio to be as much a painting as a painting we saw on the set. I wanted those rich colors. At times, I had the floor blue and the backdrop red.” Still, Futral was careful not to impose his aesthetic on the realistic set. “One of the things we decided was there would be no blackouts until the last cue,” he says. They crossfaded between scenes and created the most colorful moments during those transitions. He used naturalistic lighting during the scenes, except for the opening, when he inverted the glow. “I wanted to have the inner glow of the painting shining on the actor.” Sound design was by Kendall Simpson, costume design by Linda Patterson, and hair by Monty Schuth.

Mosby created a working studio, with muted red brick wall that were covered with shelves for painting supplies.

CYNTHIA LEVIN

UNICORN THEATRE

At the Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City, MO, scenic designer Gary Mosby dealt with a very low space, not ideal when you’re trying to create a high-ceiling studio. So he thought less about color, more about scale. “Rothko is so completely known for size and large scale,” Mosby reflects. To deal with this, he kept the focus on the center. “I made the place as real and textural as possible, and then muted it a bit, so the center was always striking.” Mosby tried to recreate Rothko’s unique easel and the ropes and pulleys he used to move large wooden frames. “We created that in steel and had it rolling, so we could move it upstage when it didn’t need to be prominent, and then down when it was all about the painting,” says Mosby. Mosby created a working studio, with muted red brick walls. He covered the walls with shelves for painting supplies. “Pretty much every square inch was covered in one way or another with shelves or canvases.” A large working industrial sink with paint splattered around it and a whole lot of canvases completed the landscape. The pictures themselves “stayed true to his style but didn’t recreate any painting,” says Mosby. Mosby agonized a great deal about the red they would use for the onstage painting. When the creative team settled on a deep red, bordering on maroon, he mixed up ten gallons needed for the run. “The play says so much about what any art does and speaks to anyone who has any kind of art in their life,” Mosby reflects. Davi Napoleon, a regular contributor to Live Design, is a freelance writer based in Michigan. Her book is Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater. JUNE 2016 \\\ 127

LOADOUT ///

VISION QUEST

Vision Quest

EUROVISION SONG CONTEST RETURNS TO SWEDEN /// BY M A RI A N S A NDBERG

128

urovision Song Contest was held this year in Stockholm, Sweden, at the Ericsson Globe Arena, with stage design by Frida Arvidsson and Viktor Brattström, lighting design by Fredrik Jönsson, video design by Mikki Kunttu, sound directed by Fredrik Stalne, and pyro by Markku Aalto. Ola Melzig was the production’s technical director. The contest saw 42 countries compete over five days, including two sets of semi-finals and a grand finale, as well as multiple dress rehearsals each day for all. And that’s not including the guest appearance by Justin Timberlake, who debuted “Can’t Stop the Feeling” and became perhaps the biggest non-contestant superstar to ever appear on the program. The production was watched by approximately 200 million viewers, this year for the first time including the United States via the Logo network. Check out extensive coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest in our online project in focus, sponsored by SHS Global.

JUNE 2016 \\\ 129

LOADOUT ///

VISION QUEST

130

ANDRES PUTTING (EBU)

Fredrik Jönsson saw the set as masculine and geometric with sharp lines and a deep perspective so he knew curved trusses and round shapes wouldn’t work. He says, “It had to speak the same language with straight lines and a bold statement.” To accomplish this, he rigged fixtures in groups of six or eight above the stage, with one long line of 56 Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures that actually prevented camera movement all the way to the back of the stage, but he felt it was essential to get the old-school look. The design was also a reaction against previous Eurovision finals that tended toward more LED-supported pop looks.

Scattered across the straight trusses over the stage Jönsson chose Clay Paky Scenius units because, he says, “They have very sharp optics. Color rendering is good, and they are white, not blue-white. The fixture package came from Litecom, 1,828 fixtures in all, and also featured Clay Paky Sharpys (308) and Sharpy Wash 330 units (166) hung overhead. The LED wall produced a large amount of light, but,” Jönsson says, “it tends to be a bit flat on camera, but we had an army of [Clay Paky] Mythos coming out of it for punch.”

JUNE 2016 \\\ 131

LOADOUT ///

VISION QUEST

Also helping Jönsson create a rock ’n’ roll look were Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash units and Harman Martin Professional Atomic 3000 LED strobes, which he chose to use with custom gel strings in scrollers because, he notes, “I don’t think there is a color-changing LED strobe powerful enough to do the trick.”

ANNA VELIKOVA (EBU)

Sixty LightSky AquaBeams from SHS Global were also used on the production. Jönsson first encountered them at LDI. “I walked into the huge exhibition hall, and I saw this light beam coming all the way from the roof and shooting straight across the hall. It had such a brilliance, and it was red, and it is very rare you see a red beam like that.”

THOMAS HANSES (EBU)

JUNE 2016 \\\ 133

LOADOUT ///

VISION QUEST

One hundred seventy-three Harman Martin Professional MAC Auras were also used at various points around the Globe, including for the green room and shining up from the green room glass tables. Also in this section were Robe BFML Blades.

ANNA VELIKOVA (EBU)

The sound design, led by sound director Fredrik Stalne, featured a slew of gear and rather involved in-ear monitor (IEM) rehearsals. Shure was the official supplier for microphones as well as IEM systems, all PSM-1000, with the Shure Axient system also widely used for wireless, along with DPA d:Facto2 capsules. For headsets, the production had DPA 4088 models.

134 THOMAS HANSES (EBU)

The lighting rig was sketched out using Cast Software wysiwig, and the design was created, edited, and run on a massive MA Lighting system, with five grandMA2 light consoles and five backups so that nothing could go wrong during a live broadcast.

ANNA VELIKOVA (EBU)

JUNE 2016 \\\ 135

LOADOUT ///

136 MICHAEL CAMPANELLA

VISION QUEST

Pools of Ayrton MagicDot-R units were built into the stage deck, specifically requested by Arvidsson and Brattstrรถm for the stage design.

JUNE 2016 \\\ 137

ANNA VELIKOVA (EBU)

LOADOUT ///

138

VISION QUEST

The Globe Arena is the world’s largest hemispherical building, so lighting the inside of it for the production was no easy task. “For Eurovision, we did laser scans to measure the arena properly for the first time since it was built in 1989, and so we got an accurate 3D model.” Jönsson put 200 SGM P-5 LED fixtures positioned in pairs just to light the dome, with “one narrow focus for the top part and one wider that overlaps with others all around.”

JUNE 2016 \\\ 139

LOADOUT ///

VISION QUEST

The video screens that dominated the set back wall and floor—900sq-m. of highresolution LEDs—were covered in a black gloss diffusion material, and images were fed via Green Hippo Hippotizer v4 media servers. The production also made use of Barco HDQ-2K40 projectors. The entire set comprised 71,000,002 pixels of resolution.

MICHAEL CAMPANELLA

Extras in the lighting rig for specific acts included 108 High End Systems Unos, built into the drum risers, and five Clay Paky Stormy fixtures for United Kingdom; 30 American DJ Dotz Matrix for Belgium; and 21 Chromlech Elidy panels for a backdrop for Sweden.

MICHAEL CAMPANELLA 140

Eurovision Song Contest 2016 Lighting Plot

LOADOUT ///

VISION QUEST

The show was mixed using a DiGiCo SD5 for the FOH music mix and the broadcast mix, with an SD7 for monitors.

MICHAEL CAMPANELLA

The Ericsson Globeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s speaker system comprises L-Acoustics K2s. Technical partners for the show and broadcast were Litecom, Pixmob, MA Lighting, Green Hippo, Cyberhoist, Live Media Group, Visual Act, and Barco.

ANDRES PUTTING (EBU)

LIVE DESIGN ///

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

BRITTANY DEADY User Marketing 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.

save the dates!

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