Germany - This summer, A Chorus Line premiered at First Stage Theatre in Hamburg. The final project of the graduates of Stage School Hamburg runs until October 2024. The annual joint project receives support from the media technology students of Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW Hamburg), who are in charge of the automated control of the lighting technology and use a zactrack SMART system for this purpose.
“In this venue, it’s absolutely essential to use followspots,” explains Fabian Oving, who supervises all student projects as a research assistant in the lighting laboratory of HAW Hamburg and also uses zactrack in the university’s own showroom for training purposes. As the First Stage Theatre does not have any dedicated personnel for followspot applications, someone came up with the idea of using the tracking system for the productions of the stage school as well.
After the successful zactrack premiere at the 2023 Christmas show featuring a zactrack mini system, the team changed to a zactrack SMART system for A Chorus Line.
“For reliability reasons, we are equipping the artists with two trackers each. Consequently, the trackers frequently change ‘owner’,” adds Fabian Oving. The entire 3D performance space of the musical is covered by ten installed anchors. “Conventional tracking systems are only used for a small number of specific followspots,” explains Oving. But, as everybody in the business knows, zactrack can do more:
“When rehearsals began, it was not clear when and where the various performers were to appear. We therefore set up some 60 lamps in the system at the start that could theoretically all be controlled via zactrack.”
While the number of spots that needed to be controlled simultaneously during the final production was not that large, the setup gave the production team the greatest amount of freedom for subsequent operational refinement as rehearsals went on. “This is where our students were able to provide support with the programming of macros and other things.”
The automated performer tracking also gave inspiration to the artistic direction staff: “When Till Nau, the producer of A Chorus Line, saw the recording of the previous Christmas show involving the zactrack mini, he definitely wanted to use the system for A Chorus Line as well,” reports Felix Wienbürger, technical director at First Stage Theatre Hamburg.
