In New York, FocusTrack provided show lighting documentation for Neil Austin's Tony Award and Drama Desk award-winning lighting for Red and his Tony-award and Drama desk nominated lighting for Hamlet, as well as for Natasha Katz's Drama Desk award nominated design for The Addams Family.
FocusTrack is currently assisting with a number of productions moving to a life beyond Broadway - the transfer of Donald Holder's lighting of Come Fly Away to Las Vegas, and the US tours featuring Kevin Adams' designs for Hair, Next to Normal and Spring Awakening - as well as for the US tours of Nine to Five, designed by Ken Billington, and South Pacific, designed by Don Holder.
FocusTrack is also being used by both US tours of Billy Elliot, lit by Rick Fisher, having been used to document the New York and original London productions of the show, and by the new US tour of Les Miserables, lit by Paule Constable, having been used to document the UK tour of the same production. Constable and her team also used FocusTrack to document Love Never Dies in London, and FocusTrack is also touring the UK with We Will Rock You, lit by Willie Williams, and Matthew Bourne's new production of Cinderella, lit by Neil Austin.
Les Mis, Love Never Dies, Next to Normal, Cinderella, Billy Elliot and Hair as well as the London productions of Legally Blonde, Flashdance and Oliver! are also using SpotTrack to manage their followspot cue sheets, raising money for the lighting charities Light Relief and the Esta Foundation's Behind The Scenes at the same time.
Though often used on large scale musical productions, neither FocusTrack nor SpotTrack are limited to that kind of show. During 2010 FocusTrack helped document Roadkill, lit by Paul Sorley at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and also generated paperwork that allowed lighting designer Johanna Town to efficiently re-create her lighting for Haunted as it transferred from Manchester to New York - this using a newly-created Cue Summary Printout function.
"FocusTrack and SpotTrack have proven their use to a whole range of lighting people on a whole range of productions during 2010," comments Rob Halliday, the software's creator, "and we enjoyed the chance to introduce more people to what they could do at our New York open morning in September."
(Jim Evans)
