SolaWash stars in Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- Details
A review on Broadway World says it’s “sumptuously-designed in more shades of red than you previously knew existed on the colour spectrum”.
New York Stage Review notes “The real stars are the artists who don't appear onstage. Lighting designer Justin Townsend can evoke anything from a pulse-pounding nightclub to the shadowy alleys of Argentina to a hallucinogenic electric-green drunken dream.”
Townsend, a two-time Tony Award nominee, says: “The SolaWash 2000 unit has been instrumental for my work on Moulin Rouge! The Musical.” He chose the High CRI version of the automated luminaire for requisite features such as its accurate colour rendering and key light for face lighting.
“It is a silent, super bright light that can be Fresnel-soft and still sharpen razor-edge to its own shutters,” he says. “I was able to cut around the complex scenery in the show and really pop the costumes and faces with clarity.”
The silence refers to the fixture’s quiet cooling system. “The fixtures do great work for me front-of-house where fan noise is essential to eliminate in modern musicals,” he adds.
The designer also enjoys using the colour palette - using CMY colour mixing and a colour wheel - which plays a starring role in the production. “The colour is rich and detailed, the whites clean and sharp,” he notes.
The show, based on the 2001 Twentieth Century Fox film by Baz Luhrmann, is booked through 5 July 2020 and is transferring to London’s Piccadilly Theatre in March 2021.
(Jim Evans)
