Staged at the Sheen Centre for Thought and Culture in New York City, and inspired by the life and work of Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo, Death for Five Voices is a complex musical that changes locations on a static set. "The show does not call for spot lights," Susan Nicholson explains, "So moving lights were my answer as a way to be able to pop characters out. It gave me an opportunity to draw the audience's attention to the important action on stage."
Nicholson used the Platinum Spot 35 Pro subtly as front light and highlights with fixtures positioned over the audience, splitting centre, and another located upstage just off of centre for backlighting. "I also used the movers as texture," she says, "decorating the walls and the actors both from the front and back. The Platinum 35s were great in both of these. They have gobos that can both work very subtly when texturing the actor on stage, and very dynamically when adding to a heightened moment.
"The colour mixing was the most important feature," Nicholson says. "I needed a good face light colour when using them to spot the actors, but also needed vibrant colours for use during night time and heated scenes. The front of house fixtures were used in many white/pink and amber tones that looked good on the skin. The back light fixture was used in more deep and saturated tones. I found the colour mixing very even." The fixture's templates (gobos) were also important, she says. "Though they can be considered by some to be too 'rock and roll', I found several perfect for theatre."
(Jim Evans)
