To help her, Zambello turned to regular collaborators, notably set designer Michael Yeargan and lighting designer Rick Fisher, who won the 1998 lighting Olivier for his work on Zambello’s Lady in the Dark at the National Theatre.To stage the show, which covers a huge range of locations and times, Yeargan designed a spectacular floor capable of rising, falling, twisting and tilting to provide land, sea or mountains as required; this scenery proved to be something of a technical challenge, requiring international co-operation between scenery makers TMS, engineers Devineau, Jetter Automation, Vertigo Rigging and production managers Stewart Crosbie and Mark Whitemore - along with one programme credit you don’t see on many shows: automation interpreter, this the experienced figure of Miki Jablkowska. Yeargan also made the bold decision to extend the French flag painted on the show’s frontcloth out onto the proscenium itself, to dramatic effect.
Though the set was capable of many dynamic shape changes, much of the work of defining space and time actually fell to lighting and projection, the projection handled by US designer Jan Hartley working with Production Arts (for large-format projection) and Creative Technology (for 35mm projection). The principal images as well as many dynamic movement effects representing - for example - falling snow or a mountain avalanche, came from three Pani BP2.5K HMI projectors with E/T/C Audiovisuel PIGI single scrollers, two running horizontally and one vertically and all mounted in a carefully-supported, soundproof, air-conditioned box on the Shaftesbury’s circle front; fortunately the theatre must be used to such treatment having endured similar on Tommy!
Rick Fisher’s lighting then had to work alongside and complement the projection. Immediately aware that this would require careful control of beams, yet still wanting a rig that was as automated as possible (since the set would never be in the same place twice, making it virtually impossible to design a ‘conventional’ rig that could cover everything) Fisher and his associate and programmer Andy Voller opted for 10 Vari*Lite VL7Bs with their shuttering system. These were then supplemented by six standard VL7s. Fisher also wanted a washlight that offered similar beam control and so turned to a unit he was already familiar with, having used it on Hunchback in Germany (see L&SI, July 99): the Amptown Washlight with its beamshaping option. The Moving Light Company supplied 24 of the tungsten washlights, as well as six DHA Pitching Digital Light Curtains, six Strand Pirouette PCs and 32 Martin MAC600 washlights, all fitted with City Theatrical spill rings to minimise flare onto the set and projection screens. The conventional rig, including around 100 Source Fours, 46 Wybron scrollers, MDG smoke machines and Spaceball and Viper smoke machines, was supplied by White Light, with the installation masterminded by production electrician Martin Chisnall and moving light technician Chris Dunford; Jason Larcombe served as Fisher’s assistant. Control for the entire rig came from a Vari*Lite Virtuoso, making its theatrical debut and seeming to give Andy Voller a new learning curve, but also many new possibilities, including the ability to work in ‘blind’ mode for the first time on a Vari*Lite console. He also cited the usefulness of the 3D rig display for checking what was happening with lights tucked away out of sight in the sides of the set. Post-opening, the sho
