The show was lit by Ben Ormerod who is known more for lighting classical theatre, contemporary dance and opera than musicals.
"When I read the script and the novel that the script was based on, it was obvious to me that the show needed to have strong Californian sunlight as a major element, and you can't create that with anything other than tungsten. We might have used par cans but they would have used up the very limited rig space for just that one look".
"Clearly everything had to move to get the most out of the space we had. That included the tungsten source and I knew the only moving tungsten unit for this was the MAC TW1".
"For the cold palette I used the MAC 700 Wash to create moonlight blues for example, and the MAC 700 Profile for the projection effects."
"Aside from movement, the big issue in the choice of units was one of noise. Silence was crucial, there was no overhead masking so the units had to be extremely quiet. The feeling of the show is acoustic - there's one song for instance, with just Zorro duetting with a guitarist."
"The MAC TW1 and 700s were perfect for this. Very quiet in operation, dimming and movement. The scrollers on the few generics were the loudest thing in the rig."
"We used the mechanical dimmers on the TW1s the whole time and that worked very well. The snaps are good and you can get the fades synchronised in a way you can't usually with a tungsten and discharge rig."
"I am more interested in narrow shafts of lights than washes. I find it easier to create a sense of brightness by illuminating the actors as strongly as possible and leaving the rest of the set in shadow rather than trying to light the whole set. So we used the narrow lens option on the TW1's as we were looking for something equivalent to a CP61, but in fact the TW1 was narrower and brighter."
The rig was supplied by Stage Electrics and Ben could not sing their praises enough: "Stage Electrics that have been enormously helpful and provided a very good service. They have really gone out of their way to help".On programming, Ben comments: "Andi Davis was the programmer and he is quite extraordinary. He can programme a moving rig as fast as others can do generics. There is no way I could have done it without him."
(Claire Beeson)
