Tag Archive: West End Lighting

1. White Light Supplies The Goat, or Who is Silvia?

   5 April 2017 08:11 Comments Off on White Light Supplies The Goat, or Who is Silvia?

   Opening tonight at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, The Goat, or Who is Silvia? is a revival of Edward Albee’s Tony Award-winning masterpiece. Starring Damian Lewis and Sophie Okonedo, the play is directed by the former Artistic Director at the Royal Court Ian Rickson. As one of the leading lighting suppliers to West End theatre, WL was called upon to provide the equipment.

   Winner of the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play, The Goat, or Who is Silvia? tells the story of Martin, a middle-aged, hugely successful architect whose seemingly perfect life is thrown into complete turmoil when he confides in his best friend that he has fallen in love with a goat named Silvia… The lighting design was created by Neil Austin, who is nominated for an Olivier Award for his work on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

   

   Neil comments: “The Goat is a funny, poignant and thought-provoking play which the cast really get the most out of. The brief for my design was to portray a successful architect’s Chelsea Brownstone House in New York. The first two acts are treated naturalistically as they are set on a sunny Spring afternoon. However, act three is much more expressionistic as the protagonist’s life begins to fall apart”.

   To achieve his design, Neil drew on WL’s extensive inventory. This includes the ETC Revolutions, ETC Source Four Series Two Lustrs, ADB Fresnels and Martin MAC Aura XBs, all of which were controlled by an ETC Ion 2K Console.

   

   Neil adds: “The Haymarket is one of the most beautiful theatres in London but, having been built in 1820, it lacks a comprehensive array of front of house lighting positions.  So, I positioned a series of ETC Revolutions on the Proscenium Boom to get the most out of the positions that existed. I drew on a range of other equipment to serve the show including large banks of par cans outside the windows to recreate the sunlight and daylight during the naturalistic scenes”.

   The play opens this evening and will run until 24th June 2017.

   Neil adds: “This has been a great play to work on with a fantastic crew and cast.  My Production Electrician Martin Chisnall, my programmer, Dan Haggerty and I would like to thank WL for their help throughout and providing us with the exact equipment we needed”.

   Photos courtesy of Johan Persson.

2. BU21 Transfers to the West End with White Light

   1 February 2017 08:28 Comments Off on BU21 Transfers to the West End with White Light

   Following its critically-acclaimed, award-nominated run at Theatre503, BU21 has recently transferred to Trafalgar Studios. The show follows six Londoners in the aftermath of a fictitious terrorist attack and is based on real testimonies gathered from a variety of terrorist incidents. Having supplied the original production, White Light was called upon again to provide the lighting equipment for the show’s West End run.
   The lighting designer for the show is Christopher Nairne, who is the current recipient of OffWestEnd’s Best Lighting Designer Award. He comments: “The director and designer settled on a stripped back look for the show: a bare black stage with grey ash built up towards the corners, and a semi-circle of six chairs for the PTSD support group which features throughout the play. I wanted to create a design that evoked the banality of group therapy with hints of the apocalyptic nature of what had occurred.”
   As many of the earlier scenes are monologues, Christopher lit these sections with a simple centre stage spot, with dimmer specials on the chairs behind to ensure that all of the characters on stage were still involved in the action.
   Christopher adds: “I have worked with the director before and we were both keen to use fluorescent striplights, which ultimately became the anchor of my design. I suggested a total of six so that they could become representative of the six characters on stage. They were also useful for the therapy scenes throughout the play as using them all at once gave a much brighter state”.
   Having designed the original production, Christopher was invited to recreate his work at Trafalgar Studios. He comments: “Helpfully, the two venues are fairly similar in terms of scale and technical specifications. The key difference is that Trafalgar 2 is semi-thrust, so we knew that some reblocking would have to take place to allow for sightlines and entrances. Also, the lower rig height meant that the shorter throw distance limited our beam spread.”
   Alongside the striplights, Christopher used a visible line of par cans as a backdrop; the rest of the rig consisted of small fresnels, Source Four profiles and birdie uplighters.
   BU21 has now opened in the West End and once again achieved critical acclaim including an array of 4- and 5-star reviews. Christopher comments: “The show is a really powerful piece of theatre and one which I’m extremely proud to be a part of. I am grateful to WL for being so accommodating during both the original and current run as it has certainly made the whole process run much smoother.”
   BU21 runs at Trafalgar Studios until 18 February.
   Photos courtesy of David Monteith-Hodge and Tristram Kenton.