HSL Supplies Evita
HSL continues a busy 2009 theatre season supplying lighting to a number of productions including the UK tour of Evita, being produced by Bill Kenwright.
A very tasty lighting design was created by Mark Howett which perfectly captures the mood and feel of 1940’s Buenos Aires.
The tour is project managed for HSL by Mike Oates, and is being looked after on the road by Kathleen Powell and Germaine Williams, with each venue's re-light overseen by production LX Chris Cunningham who also programmed the grandMA light console running the lighting.
The set designed by Matthew Right consists of 3 elegant sets of portals and a staircase, all of which are used highly effectively and are also carefully lit to change appearance and perspectives.
The overhead rig includes 17 Robe ColorWash 1200E ATs, with another 6 on side stage ladders, plus 9 VL3000s also overhead, used as specials, with another 4 per side on the side ladders. Out front - rigged either on the front truss or on the front of the upper circle are a further 2 Robe ColorWash 1200s or front wash.
Howett’s design started with the music, and he treated it as he would any other opera-styled piece, which took him back to his roots working with the Australian Opera.
He researched the Perónist period in Argentina and, now living in Berlin, the location gave him many background images of what Perón saw as an ideal of fascism, and went into the very limited rehearsal period with these in his head.
The choice and positioning of the moving lights was crucial to creating real dynamics for the show. He wanted lighting instruments that were reliable and powerful, and HSL invited him into their warehouse to demonstrate the different fixtures available and how they might work on the show.
He was extremely pleased with the VL3000s which “Cut through the wash lights and give the power to produce the high contrast looks associated with the references I’d gathered”.
He adds that these lanterns and the Colour Picker function on the grandMA light were the starting points for most of the lighting states.
Four booms per side are each populated with 3 Source Four profiles with 26 degree lenses. Along the front is a set of 6 MR16 ‘Birdies’, utilized as footlights, together with 2 Source Fours each side.
As far as possible, they make use of fixtures from the venue's own FOH rigs, augmenting with their own when needed. A series of set practicals inbuilt in the portals are also controlled by the grandMA light.
For the Tango Bar scene, some large glowing incandescent lightbulbs are flown in to add to the dusky mood, and a set of festoons are used on ‘Buenos Aires’, one of the first big production numbers of the performance.
HSL has supplied 10 500W Groundrows used for up-lighting the cyc and 6 1000W 4-cell cyc floods down-lighting it from above, and some additional Source Four PARs are used for texturing variations on the cyc.
It’s a busy show for lighting with approximately 300 cues, run manually on 2 separate cue stacks. Mike Oates says, “It’s been a pleasure working with Mark on this, and the fabulously atmospheric and dynamic design speaks for itself. As with all the Kenwright shows, the emphasis is on maintaining good production values which suit a hectic touring schedule”.
