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HSL supplies moving lights for “Sweet Charity”

HSL supplies moving lights for “Sweet Charity”
HSL supplies moving lights for “Sweet Charity”

HSL supplied moving lights and LED screen for the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich’s recent production of the Cy Coleman musical, “Sweet Charity”. Lighting designer was Nick Richings, and set/costume designer was Libby Watson.

 

Richings and Watson worked closely on developing the whole visual concept with director Pete Rowe, setting it in the 1960s underlined with a strong Pop Art aesthetic, together with stylized text/images and colouring that embodied the movement.

 

A main upstage 4 x 4 metre flown video wall was made up of Martin EC20 LED product and flanked by two smaller screen surfaces either side, measuring one and two metres square respectively. The screens were filled with Pop Art style parodies, line drawings and iconic words from the era.

 

This Pop Art vibe and the primarily monochrome scenic set pieces were the starting point for Richings’ lighting scheme for which HSL provided ten Robe 600E Spots which he used on all the big production numbers and to highlight various other specific scenes.

 

In “Big Spender” eight female saxophone players were down-lit with 600E Spot beams. All the brightness and colour moments were counterbalanced by monochrome looks, and this contract was developed as a vehicle to distinguish between indoor (colourful) and exterior (desaturated) locations.

 

Lighting - Richings also utilised a selection of generic fixtures from the substantial house lighting system - was programmed on the house ETC Eos console by Dave Gardener from the theatre’s LX crew.

 

Richings and Watson chose the EC20 screen after seeing a demo at Opera Holland Park and selected it from the three options offered by HSL. Watson chose to work with LED rather than projection because of the specific vibrant ‘pop-out’ look she wanted.

 

The screen content was all stored on a QLAB media server supplied by HSL. The screens were filled with images and text throughout the show, primarily stills artwork with some animated sequences, all created by Watson. Much of it was hand drawn to avoid looking too computer generated and a lot of it was inspired by Roy Lichtenstein’s comic book style.

 

(Photos: Mike Kwasniak/New Wolsey Theatre)

 

www.hslgroup.com

 

HSL supplies moving lights for “Sweet Charity”HSL supplies moving lights for “Sweet Charity”

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