Until now, productions have always included set pieces which revolve and emerge through trap doors, requiring extensive digging through the floor of theatres, which will not be possible on tour, so the set has been suitably modified. Lighting designer Rick Fisher also took the opportunity to consolidate some of the lighting on the show. He explains, "We needed to be able to keep the get in and get out times as short as possible, so that the first performance in a new venue could be within the week of moving.
"We've packaged the lighting to stay on the trusses as far as possible, while preserving the useful mix of equipment in the show, keeping the look as theatrical as it is at the moment. Even after some consolidation, we still have some 50 ETC Source Four Revolutions among the total of 120 moving lights - there are now as many movers as conventionals.
"Each time we do a new show, I look at where the lights are and see if we can remove some or replace them with different types of lighting - so, for example, last time I looked at the rig and realised that some fixtures had just two or three focus positions while others rarely moved. This meant I could reduce the number of movers by 10-15% for the Chicago show."
For the new shows, Fisher has also decided to move the show onto a new control desk - an ETC Eos. "It was a hard decision to make," he explains, "but we were thinking of the future. The show might be running for another five or 10 years and we wanted to have a future proofed control system. Eos seemed to be a good choice, especially since we'll be spending a lot of time in the US where ETC is a key player in the lighting control market."
(Jim Evans)
