Elation lights Floyd Central’s Newsies
- Details
Newsies ran at the high school, located in Floyds Knobs, last November, selling out all six performances. Lighting industry pro and Floyd Central alumnus Michael Nevitt of Crossfade Design, LLC served as lighting designer and lighting mentor on the production. “Disney wanted to see what the challenges would be for high schools and Floyd Central could then provide them with feedback,” explains Nevitt. “For example, how to get around the fact that there are lots of boy characters in the cast while many, sometimes most, theatre students are female. That meant they had to test out casting girls in roles originally written for boys. Another challenge is staging a play like this on a school’s more limited budget.”
Not only does Floyd Central High School have one of America's top high school theatre programmes, they have a full Elation lighting rig to boot. Nevitt had at his disposal a house rig of Elation fixtures that the school purchased in 2015 from Phoenix Lighting of Louisville, Kentucky.
The package consists of LED-based Arena Q7 Zoom PAR wash lights and Platinum Spot 5R Pro moving heads, along with Colour Chorus 48 LED batten wash lights and white-light Cuepix Blinder WW2 lights. For Newsies, Nevitt added to the rig Elation Artiste DaVinci LED moving head spots and Elation EMOTION moving head digital lights.
Floyd Central High School’s director of theatre arts, Robbie Steiner comments, “Many of our students pursue careers in technical theatre and I am thrilled that they are able to work with some of the newest lighting technology out there. They have been able to learn technology that they will encounter in the professional world and gain valuable experience that can be transferred to work at the college and professional levels.”
(Jim Evans)
