Mavericks play lead role in King’s Ransom
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At the heart of this imaginative project lies A King's Ransom, a children's opera written by classical composer Patrick Hawes. Supporting this reimagined tale of Robin Hood is a subtle, yet powerful, lighting design by Johanna Town that features a collection of Maverick and Rogue moving fixtures from Chauvet Professional.
Plans are now afoot to develop A King’s Ransom into a national education project, hoping to engage and inspire more children up and down the country, due to the success of its recent premiere.
The set, designed by Michael Pavelka, consisted primarily of a single cloth representing the giant oak tree in Sherwood Forest. Town's challenge was to invoke night and day in the depths of a forest through intricate changes in lighting. The 28 Maverick fixtures in her rig were key to helping her create this effect. She had six Maverick MK2 Spot, six Maverick MK1 Hybrid and 16 Maverick MK2 Wash units on upstage, FOH and side-stage truss.
"I needed lighting tools that could create the strong imagery of the forest all around, as well as give me flexible and optimum coverage of the staging area," said Town. "The Maverick Spots were used to help create the feeling of the forest over the whole stage for the village scenes.”
Drawing on the dual six-position rotating slot and lock gobo wheels of each Maverick fixture, Town was able to create a myriad of patterned and textured light effects that evoked images of Sherwood Forest. “The Mavericks enabled me to create creepy, eerie and busy forest looks to great effect,” commented Town. “What’s more, I loved the great light output and versatility of the Hybrid fixtures. Not only were they very bright, they also allowed me to go from beam to wash with some nice gobo effects.”
Supporting the Maverick fixtures were eight Rogue R2 Wash units. “I chose to have both Maverick and Rogue Washes on the rig, as I really wanted to see how they compared with one another,” commented Town. “Both units worked well together, with both units responding well with perfect colour matching and mixing."
(Jim Evans)
