Tarrantulas in the house in Warsaw
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There are two performance spaces at the Palace of Culture, and the company also runs programmes in two other buildings around the city.
These four stages offer a busy and vibrant schedule of modern, classical and new works with a reputation for excellent acting and tackling relevant contemporary issues. Each space stages between 10 and 12 shows a year, primarily their own productions.
Mateusz oversees all things technical in the main Dramatic Theatre building and creates new lighting specs as and when they are needed to ensure they keep pace with developing technology. These then go out to open tender.
When initially looking for new fixtures for key lighting - with Tarrantula as one of the contenders - Mateusz and his team were all impressed with the controllability of the fixture, and beyond that, the sheer power, which they thought would be perfect for the 460-capacity ‘Big’ stage - in addition to key lighting duties. They also wanted a source with a high CRI and Tarrantula fitted all the criteria.
The decision to choose the Tarrantulas - delivered directly by Robe’s Polish distributor, Prolight - was a collective one made by Mateusz and the Dramatic Theatre’s lighting crew in consultation with some key individuals including deputy technical director Mariusz Guglas and influential lighting designer Ewa Garniec.
“As well as meeting all the tender requirements, Tarrantula offered the best value for the money because it was multifunctional,” observes Mateusz, adding that ‘cost-efficiency’ is also factored into any purchases.
One of the first productions to use the new Tarrantulas was the hit Kinky Boots which was lit by Lukasz Rozewicz.
The first production to be entirely based around the new Tarrantulas was Princess Turandot, which premiered in September and was lit by lighting designer Ewa Garniec.
(Jim Evans)
