White Light Offers Big Support for Little Women

Following a successful 2017 season, the Musical Theatre Performance Company at the University of Chichester recently presented Little Women. The production took place on April 19-21 at The Alexandra Theatre in Bognor Regis. The Lighting Designer was WhatsOnStage Award-nominated Jack Weir and he approached White Light to supply the lighting equipment.

Based on Louisa May Alcott’s life, Little Women follows the adventures of sisters, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy March. When it was first performed on Broadway it achieved critical acclaim and is often revived across the globe. Jack explains: “I’d never seen the show before but had heard great things. I also knew a lot of the numbers such as Astonishing so I was familiar with it somewhat”.

Whilst the production was for the University of Chichester’s Musical Theatre Performance Company, a large part of Jack’s brief was ensuring that the show felt like a professional production. He comments: “For a lot of these students, this may be the last performance they have before entering the real world and becoming professional actors. Therefore the standards need to be just as high as they would on any professional production; something that was at the forefront of my design and the equipment I drew on”.

Jack approached WL to supply him with the equipment he needed. This included the Martin Professional MAC Viper, the MAC TW1, the MAC 700 Wash and the SGM P5 LED Wash Light.

Jack explains: “The SGMs are fantastically bright and a unit I’ve drawn on before. Due to their brightness, we only needed eight units to light the cyc top and bottom; which resulted in a lovely effect. The main purpose for drawing on the MAC Viper was to shoot through a hanging window. The window was the main focal point of Amy Watts’ brilliant set and, as a result, was a point in which very bright yet controllable lighting was required”.

This marks another student production that WL has supplied, having provided the equipment on other university shows across the country. It’s also another show of Jack’s that WL has supported,  having also supplied the UK tour of Out of Order along with Rothschild & Sons which ran at the Park Theatre earlier this year.

Jack comments: “I am extremely grateful to WL once again for their support on Little Women. They worked within my budgets, the constraints I was faced and ultimately delivered a package from which I was able to achieve my design. The final result was a fantastic show which offered the perfect platform for the students to experience the taste of a professional production”.

Photos courtesy of Andrew Worsfold.

For more photos, please click here: https://weirdlighting.pixieset.com/littlewomen/