Working alongside production electrician Fraser Hall and production manager Matt Towell, Stage Electrics supplied a total of 17 tons of equipment; the equipment was delivered to the Palladium in just three weeks from point of order. The Martin fixtures are complimented by 19 Vari*Lite VL1000AS.
The lead for this new production of the Rogers and Hammerstein show, one of the world's most loved musicals, was decided via the reality television show How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? with Andrew Lloyd Webber as the ultimate judge. The production, which opened to critical acclaim with Connie Fisher in the lead role, is produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Really Useful Group, David Ian and Live Nation.
Lighting designer for the production, Mark Henderson, had 39 1200 W MAC TW1 Tungsten washes at his disposal. He says: "The MAC TW1s turned out to be a great unit - wonderful to have the colour mixing and variable beam size. It gave us good scope for a good Tungsten based wash enabling very good pastel colour range which works well on skin tones. On the TW1s I particularly liked the colour mixing together with the facility to be able to change the beam size. That's not really been an option on a colour mixing tungsten unit previously."
The MAC TW1s were accompanied by 30 MAC 700 Washes and 16 MAC 700 Profiles. "The 700s were great for all the gobo and movement work," says Henderson. "It was very good to get lots of movement that didn't need to be flashy but helped to get some animation into the looks. Of course the lack of fans helped enormously and meant we were not restricted as to placement of the units which in turn meant that we could get good numbers of quality moving lights without having to worry about sound issues. On the MAC 700s I have always been a fan of the internal animation disc. It is a great way to get more movement whether it be moving clouds or flames. That, together with a very good choice of gobos and colour mixing, makes it a great unit.
"Both type of fixture are used in pretty much all available locations. We have some overhead, some on the side towers and some front of house on the circle fronts. There being very little fan noise meant that there was no real limitation on where we placed them. All the units performed really well and were extremely reliable."
Stage Electrics' business development manager Chris Patton, says: "It is not unusual for Stage Electrics to supply equipment and services to some of the world's biggest theatre shows, but to be involved with such a high profile production as The Sound of Music with all the television coverage it received prior to opening at the Palladium is a real privilege."
The lighting rig also contains 250 generics, mainly ETC Source 4 profiles complemented by Source 4 Pars and Thomas Par 16 Battens. All equipment supplied by Stage Electrics is controlled via a High End Hog IPC console with full Hog PC back system.
(Chris Henry)
