The new production, playing at the London Palladium, is a faithful re-creation of the original Michael Bennett show, staged by members of the original creative team including director/choreographers Bob Avian (co-choreographer of the original production) and Baayork Lee (a member of the original cast, who has re-staged many productions of the show since), set designer Robin Wagner and the late costume designer Theoni V Aldredge.
The show also retains the legendary lighting design by pioneering lighting designer Tharon Musser, who passed away in 2009. For the 2006 Broadway revival and subsequent productions of A Chorus Line, her work was re-created and updated to current lighting technology by award-winning lighting designer Natasha Katz - in London using a lighting rig supplied by White Light.
With the set consisting largely of a dark open stage with just a white line across it, much of the work in defining and changing the atmosphere throughout the show falls to lighting - which starts off harsh, revealing the sweat and effort of the dancers, transforms into deep purple 'thought' lights as each dancer reveals their innermost dreams, and then evolves through dramatic, Mondrian-style colouring of the stage to a single, solo followspot as one character tells his life story. Technologically the original New York production also became legendary for being the first Broadway show to use computerised lighting control.
In designing the revival, Natasha Katz began by researching the original show, through the original light plot, focus charts, followspot sheets and level tracking sheets. The result was to retain the fundamentals of the design while updating the equipment to current standards; after lighting the show Katz admitted that she was "in awe of that light plot".
After New York and a US tour, the show was presented in Australia prior to arriving in London. With Katz busy with many other projects, including the new musical Motown in New York and the transfer of her Tony-award winning design for Once to London, she asked her Australian associate, Gavan Swift, to look after the London production.
In New York, Katz had added some VL1000 moving lights to give her greater flexibility. For London, Katz and Swift stripped the design back, cutting the moving lights to give what Swift describes as "a fantastic, updated lighting plot that stays true to the original in that there are no moving lights, but is updated using the most current equipment and the sensitive addition of colour scrollers which serve to amplify the colour palette of the show".
The rig, supplied by White Light includes around 400 ETC Source Fours and 60 ETC Source Four Pars plus 160 Rainbow colour scrollers, all controlled from an ETC Eos lighting console. The rig was installed by a team led by production electrician Pete Lambert and Palladium head electrician David Draude; also working with Swift was UK associate lighting designer Stuart Porter, while Richard Bullimore was the show's production manager.
(Jim Evans)
