GLP Fusions light Hercules in Central Park
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To add poignancy, the venue chosen was the outdoor Delacorte Theatre in New York’s Central Park, and helping Tyler to achieve his objectives were 34 Fusion by GLP FP7 Par and 20 Fusion by GLP FS10 Stick battens, operating alongside the repertory house rig.
Tyler has a long history of working on productions with Lear deBessonet, founding director of Public Works, and has designed four productions for The Public Theatre at the Delacorte.
The LD said: “Musicals are not the typical production at the Delacorte Theatre and I needed additions to the repertory lighting package that could contribute the colour changing and dynamics more typical to musical theatrethan a straight play. While in recent summers, The Public Theatre has had some colour changing LEDs and a small inventory of moving lights, they haven’t had weather-resistant (IP65 or better) ratings.”
Both he and Alex Brandt (the lighting supervisor of The Public Theatre) had also been interested in seeing what kind of IP65-rated equipment was currently on the market as the latter was tired of having his electricians constantly swapping out gear due to wind and rain damage.
“In order to get the lights integrated into the set in places where they couldn’t be covered, the IP-rating was key,” agreed Brandt.
Since Hercules had a limited run of only eight performances over two weekends, and only one week of production time, Tyler contacted GLP to see what was available.
“I already had the relationship with them from the Broadway production of Be More Chill, so I immediately approached [GLP Inc president], Mark Ravenhill and as it turned it out, they had just acquired a company making these very IP65-rated fixtures.” Alex Brandt agreed that the FP7 Par and FS10 Stick formed “the perfect additions to the rig”.
Tyler Micoleau had previously put the Fusion fixtures through their paces in the Park, at a demo in July, and he noted that the LEDs and optics bore similarity to GLP’s impression X4 Bars. He approved their addition to the lighting rig “because they were exactly the right tool”.
The set itself was a wooden replica of an ancient Greek theatre ruin surrounded by the trappings of a contemporary archaeological dig in the form of scaffolding. “The Fusion Sticks integrated very well among the metal truss structures of the scaffold platforming, creating end-to-end linear arrays across the front. Pointing towards the audience, they gave me a line of LED pixels that tied the set together. The Fusion Pars had a very compact profile and made for excellent uplights at the base of the six enormous (28ft) Grecian columns.”
Alex Brandt credits Miles Dudgeon at GLP for his assistance and Chris McMeen at Christie Lites for the delivery of the lighting system.
(Jim Evans)
