Tag Archive: west end musical lighting

1. White Light Flies Broken Wings into Theatre Royal Haymarket

   23 August 2018 09:35 Leave a Comment

   

   Broken Wings is a brand-new musical which recently premiered in the West End at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Based on Lebanese-born poet Kahlil Gibran’s autobiographical tale of the same name, the show is written by Nadim Naaman (The Phantom of the Opera) and composer Dana Al Fardan. As a leading supplier to West End productions, White Light was called upon to supply the lighting equipment.

   The show was lit by Lighting Designer Nic Farman, whose previous West End credits include The Toxic Avenger and 3Women. He comments: “For this particular production, the director Bronagh Lagan and I decided that light would be extremely helpful in conveying a sense of both location and time. The show features the older Gibran reflecting back on his life so the narrative switches to the past frequently. I worked closely with Bronagh to develop the palette for the show. We based the older Gibran scenes around cold blues and CTB which contrasted with hot, rich oranges, yellows and reds for Beirut. As the sorrow of the story develops, the warmth in the lighting is stripped out; culminating in the funeral of Selma.”

   

   Nic adds: “When we were teching the production, it was important to work quickly so we created a number of looks which were refined during the dress rehearsal and first preview. Each location in the show is visually very striking: gardens, shady restaurants, a temple, the docks etc. As a result, we had a lot of fun developing a layered stage picture with the colour palette and texture from gobo washes”.

   Having known what he wanted to achieve from his design, Nic approached WL to draw on a range of fixtures. He comments: “I had a majority moving light rig overhead, with a number of Chauvet Maverick MK2 Profiles and Maverick MK1 Spots to provide specials and gobo washes. These were supplemented with Martin TW1s grouped together in pairs for back washlight. The sidelight came from Chauvet Ovation E930VWs and Ovation E910FC Profiles. The combination of the variable white and full colour units meant I had flexibility to do both variable colour temperature and saturated washes.

   He continues: “The cyc was lit from top and bottom with ETC ColorSource units with the cyc lens attachment. These gave me the rich tones I needed to create the Middle Eastern sky, as well as the punch to fight over the stage wash. Completing the rig were a number of ETC Source Fours positioned front of house as well as two Super Korrigan Followspots”.

   With the show being a limited run, this meant that Nic and his team had a limited period in which to get into the venue. He comments: “The show started going in on Monday morning and opened for first preview on the Wednesday evening. But I was able to design a rig that accommodated for this, with minimal overhead focussing needing to be done and side light at floor level so it could be focused without ladders. Then, when we got into tech, it became about working quickly and in broad brushstrokes that were refined over the dress rehearsal and first preview”.

   The production marks one of many that WL is currently supplying in the West End, with others including TINA – The Tina Turner Musical, 42^ndStreet, Young Frankenstein, Imperium, Pressure, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Jungle, The King and I, The Lieutenant of Inishmore and Aladdin to name but a few.

   Nic comments: “I want to say a massive thanks to my Production Electrician Adam Mottley and his assistant Matt Harding, my follow spot operators Sam Hawkes and Rose Fraser, and all the team at Theatre Royal Haymarket for getting the show in and up in a very short space of time. Also a huge thank you to Jonathan Haynes and Jim Dewhirst at WL and Tom Wilkes at Chauvet for their continued support”.

   Photos courtesy of Marc Brenner.

   Full Credits:

   Broken Wings
   by Nadim Naaman & Dana Al Fardan

   Director: Bronagh Lagan
   Set Design: Claudio Rosa & Mira Abad
   Costume Design: Nik Corrall
   Lighting Design: Nic Farman
   Sound Design: Ed Borgnis & Simon Hendry
   Photos: Marc Brenner

2. 42nd Street – Exclusive Interview with Peter Mumford

   27 April 2017 08:26 Comments Off on 42nd Street – Exclusive Interview with Peter Mumford

   Considered by many to be one of the biggest Broadway musicals of all time, 42^nd Street has now arrived in London where it has received rave reviews from audiences and critics alike. Starring Grammy Award winner Sheena Easton, this all singing, high-kicking spectacle is currently playing at Theatre Royal Drury Lane – London’s biggest stage.  The show tells the story of young Peggy Sawyer who is fresh off the bus from small-town America and just another face in the chorus line on Broadway’s newest show. Yet when the leading lady gets injured, Peggy might just have the shot at stardom which she’s always dreamed off… The lighting design is by Olivier Award winner Peter Mumford and White Light has supplied the equipment. We sat down with Peter who told us about his approach to the show and how he achieved his design:

   42^nd Street is obviously an iconic show. Have you lit it before? If not, how do you approach a show as renowned as this?

   No, I’ve not lit 42nd Street previously or indeed seen it. You’re right – it is an iconic show with a long history since the early eighties. In this instance, I’d say that not having seen it was probably an advantage as I didn’t have too many preconceptions. There are some images that date right back to the original Gower Champion concept that ‘travel’ with the show, such as the dressing room scene at the start of Act Two which are unchangeable so just there to be reconstructed rather that re-imagined. Having said that, that particular scene is quite brilliant so one wouldn’t want to change it but rather reproduce it as beautifully as possible. Those instances aside,  there are plenty of opportunities to reinvent the look of much of the rest of the piece and I relished that opportunity and hopefully was able to bring new looks to lots of the show.

    What was your brief when working on the production?

   As I said above, some parts are sacrosanct – Gower Champion died concurrent with the opening production on Broadway so these scenes remain as a tribute to his genius but much of the work has (in this production) been updated with more recent technology and there was plenty of space for invention as well. I’m pleased to say that Doug Schmidt, the designer, said that he’d never seen it sharper or more detailed in terms of both the lighting and the way his scenery looked. So, although the piece has a history which had to be respected, and I was working alongside much of the original creative team, it never felt too restricted creatively.

    How much preparation did you do? What did this entail?

   Obviously a good look at early pictures of the scenic designs which are quite complex – there’s a lot of scenery in this show. There is also a huge number of beautifully painted cloths and structures (all repainted brilliantly by Andrew Greenfield). These cloths are painted in a variety of ways and on different material surfaces, so some are painted to be back lit and some front whereas some could be lit from both front and back. It was important to understand this and also get a clear idea of the rapid fire order of scenes. Studying the ground plans was pretty crucial as the grid is absolutely packed. This also meant that onstage lighting positions were very much defined by the hanging and order of scenery. My spot bar one was forced to be further upstage than I would normally have liked; hung under the large dressing room structure because that was the only place it would fit!

   There are also around five thousand light bulbs built into the design which feature heavily in some of the numbers – here we kept to the original design but updated the technology of the realisation.It was important not to lose the period feel of the piece which, of course, is set in the 1930’s.

   I had quite a bit of pre-communication with set designer Doug Schmidt and the writer and director Mark Bramble. Pre-production meetings involved quite a lot of conference calls between London, New York and the West Coast. It was quite a relief when we finally all got on the same stage at Drury Lane.

    

   What kit did you draw on to achieve your design?

   In the end I went for a pretty much automated overhead rig comprised of Martin MAC Vipers, ETC Source 4 Lustr 2 Profiles and GLP Impression X4 Bar 20s. Out front, there were a lot of regular ETC Source Fours alogn with Philips Vari*Lite VL3500Qs  on the distant truss.

    Did any fixture prove particularly useful for this production?

   I was very impressed with the GLP Bars which we pixel mapped, meaning that each individual cell was available. I used complete bars of them on almost each onstage bar and they were very useful to both light cloths and, because of the tilt and flood facility, create a good punchy backlight wash too.

   The Vipers proved to be a versatile and constantly useful workhorse and created great flexibility in the many big numbers. It was a great combination.

    Where there any obstacles with the show?

   I suppose the trickiest thing was the downstage lighting bar being quite a bit further upstage than I would have chosen. This is because there is simply so much scenery downstage there wasn’t room. Using an advance truss downstage of the proscenium did prove to be a way around this and, in the end, it worked well. We had to make quite a busy ‘track’ for some of the side booms which have to be frequently moved out of place during the show to allow scenery to get on stage. As a result, I was quite often asking ‘is bay 2 in position?’ and looking for ways to light a scene if it wasn’t. Ultimately, we created quite a complex system of pathways for scenery and all was resolved, but all credit to the onstage LX crew for managing this so well.

    Any other comments?

   Generally speaking I’m not a huge user of follow spots but my team at Drury Lane are the best you could wish for. That also goes for the entire in-house crew under the leadership of Steve McAndrew – great support and work throughout the five weeks of production. Special thanks too to my team: Declan Randall, my Associate, John Tapster, Production LX and Vic Brennan, my Programmer – all of them are just brilliant!

   Photos courtesy of Brinkhoff/Moegenburg.