Running at the Teatro Nuevo Apolo (New Apollo Theatre), Shrek El Musical is keeping family audiences spellbound with its mixture of comedy, choreography, a wide range of new songs and heart-warming plot, all suitably adapted for the Spanish audience.
Production company Theatre Properties specialises in musicals and has a number of Yamaha digital consoles in its inventory. A Yamaha PM5D-RH was chosen to mix the FOH requirements of what is a fairly complex production.
"ThePM5D-RH was specified for a number of reasons," says Jacinto López of Yamaha Music Europe Ibérica. "A prime one was that the company's sound engineers have a lot of experience of mixing previous musicals like Annie and Peter Pan on Yamaha consoles, so they knew the PM5D would be the right console for this kind of production."
With the exception of the Monkees' I'm A Believer (sung in Spanish except for the choruses), the production features a completely new set of songs which feature a multitude of styles, including rock, blues, pop, boleros and a rap. Delivered by a 12-strongband playing instruments ranging from horns to mandolins, the entire production is programmed on scenes in the PM5D.
"High quality automation was very important," López continues. "Several of the musicians play more than one instrument and so programming everything on scenes made the changes seamless. The PM5D also provided enough bus outputs and, of course, it's rock-solid reliability was really important."
(Jim Evans)
