Alistair Kilbee, managing director at Gearhouse Splitbeam reports, "The Lighting rig came from White Light in the UK , and they have a very good reputation and have worked with Showtime Management before on other productions. Bringing equipment in for a production is always tricky, but it is all about back-up at the end of the day. As Splitbeam is handling the technical management of the production, it makes things a bit easier and through our relationship with DWR we keep all the equipment working.
"White Light have been very professional and have supplied a number of spare units and also have sent parts as and when needed. With a lighting rig as large as this there is always going to be something going wrong, but it is all about getting the spare units up and running in the shortest time possible."
Splitbeam supplied Rigging, IT, lighting extras, lighting operator (Clement Makama) and technical director (Alistair Kilbee). In addition, they supplied 44 CM motors and 104way controllers for the rigging of the automation mother truss. They also supplied some additional Vari-lites, and all the IT systems for the production weeks where they had MA software running on laptops and over 12 monitors running MA cue lists.
Kilbee continues, "Dreamgirls has a very modern set design which makes this show the most technologically advanced of any theatre show that I have ever worked on. The flying/rotating LED screens work on a state-of-the-art automation system, which also drives the deck tracks for the clear Plexiglas tables.
"The LED screens fly in and out and rotate to create different looks on the stage. This all hangs from the grid on a 18 ton mother truss with independent motor drives built in, all of which are run on fibre optic cable. In addition to the mother truss, there are six lighting trusses running up and down stage which have four lighting 'pods' hanging independently 20ft below them, making a grid of 24 'pods'. This leaves space for the LED screens to fly up into the grid anywhere on stage without hitting the lights.
"The biggest challenge on this production was the rigging (supplied by Splitbeam). All the rigging points had to be within 10mm of the rigging plot to stop all the trusses clashing as they move. There are five main support trusses (part of the mother truss) for the LED screen and six lighting trusses hanging between them for the lighting 'pods'. The clearance between the trusses can be as little as 50mm which is not much when flying LED trusses up and down at high speed (1.6m per second)."
(Jim Evans)
