Award
winning lighting designer Paul Pyant returned to London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic
Art (RADA) to light a production of the Steven Sondheim classic, A Little Night Music directed by Edward
Kemp and staged at RADA’s Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre in central London.
Robe
enjoy a close ongoing working relationship with RADA, making their latest
technologies available for students to use across the three main venues. Paul’s
design for this production utilised Robe’s DL7S LED profiles and the new Spiider
LED wash beam moving lights, together with other moving and conventional
fixtures.
Paul’s acclaimed
career started at RADA – he is a 1973 alumnus of the Academy’s technical
training course – and features extensive work across the genres of theatre,
opera, ballet and dance. It’s earned him recognition for lighting a diversity
of shows from large-scale West End and Broadway extravaganzas to incisive performances
at venues like the National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse and the ENO, to the
bleeding edge of independent fringe.
Although
this impressive CV has included many Sondheim masterpieces, mainly at the
Donmar with director Sam Mendes and The Man Himself, this is the first time A Little Night Music has received his
touch, and he was very excited to be able to return to RADA.
Paul
collaborated with a student team on this show, all of whom benefitted from his
fund of experience and knowledge. The Academy’s Head of Production Lighting Matt
Leventhall oversaw the process which was one of the most technically ambitious
musicals RADA has produced to date.
Designer
Jane Heather and Edward Kemp wanted the narrative to feature both projection
and lighting in its visual treatment, and the need for the two media to coexist
and work fluidly together was a key starting point for Paul’s design.
Projection
content was created by acclaimed projection artist and video designer Nina
Dunn.
Before compiling
his fixture lists, Paul visited the Robe factory in the Czech Republic and saw
both DL7Ss and Spiiders in action at the demo facility. Once he decided he wanted
to use these for the show, Robe assisted in making them available. They were
used with a number of ‘house’ fixtures in residence at RADA which include Robe LEDWash
800s and 600s, DL4S Profiles and CycBar 15s.
Rigged
above the stage, the DL7S Profiles created different areas of lighting and were
used to define locations or suggest different spaces in-between two mobile
projection screens that were used as ‘walls’ and moved around. This allowed
action to run simultaneously in different areas and locations.
“As the
screens were moved”, explained Paul, “the idea was that the DL7S Profiles could
‘morph’ using their very accurate shutters to denote the different areas
seamlessly between scene shifts”. The fixture’s ability to create straight
shuttered edges at full zoom was a big asset in achieving this objective. The
DL7S Profiles also provided “useful gobo work” for the more atmospheric scenes
in Act 2.
Matt adds
that the seven colours of the DL7S can produce accurate temperature and quality
matches to the tungsten sources being used. Its excellent dimming, combined
with the ETC EOS console’s curves, could also replicate this characteristic in
tungsten very authentically.
The DL7S Profiles are now part of RADA’s
moving light stock for use across their venues, and this production was their
first show. Matt thinks they are “the best LED moving light available on the
market right now” and is certain they will be used for all shows staged in the Jerwood
Vanbrugh from now on.
The four Spiiders
came from CEG and created an intense backlight effect together with a bright,
highly saturated blue wash onto which the video content was layered.
Matt said
they all “enjoyed” the brightness and the thick beam at minimum zoom and he
could see that the flower effect would be impressive in a live music context!
Being a
musical, there was plenty of call for saturated colour, an area where most LED
luminaires excel, and the six LEDWash 800s and 10 LEDWash 600s all had their
fair share of ‘moments’.
The DL4S
Profiles were primarily used to augment the gobo looks and to add texturing,
using the standard gobo set with the addition of a custom ‘Alpha Ray’ gobo.
Paul
thinks that LED technology has advanced quickly and that these newer fixtures
in particular have been proved to have the best dimming qualities he has seen to
date, as well as being “reliable, easy to programme and quiet”.
Matt’s
take on the noise issues is that with upwards of 30 Robe LED sources on the
rig, the venue was “absolutely silent”, which is fundamental for theatrical
productions.
Having
LED luminaires readily available to light shows also saves RADA considerable
hassle in not having to constantly re-lamp fixtures, assists in general heat
management – as well as empowers students to learn how to maintain the lights and
get the most out of them creatively.
Paul’s
biggest overall challenge on this production was to ensure that the lighting complemented
and balanced the projection. Working in the traverse format is always
galvanising, as having an audience on three sides and close to the action
limits the visual impact of directional lighting. However, the intimacy and
sense of involvement this brings is a big boost to the viewer experience.
He also
comments that it was a massive project to deliver in a very short space of
time, and had he been in a standard ‘outside world’ scenario, he would have had
to pick his team extremely carefully to achieve results.
As it
happened, his core student team dealt brilliantly with the pressure and the
circumstances: “This was way beyond my expectations! I genuinely wanted for
nothing as we achieved so much in a short space of time, to very high
standards”, he recalls.
Working alongside Paul were assistant
lighting designer and follow spot captain Teresa Nagel, lighting programmer
Daniel Smith, stage manager Emily Melville-Brown, DSM Danni Haylett and
projection programmer Cameron Affleck.
Both
chief electrician Simi Majekodunmi and the production electrician, Ariane Nixon
also worked tirelessly on the physically realisation of Paul’s design.
“They were all EXTRA brilliant,” he
declares.
Running
concurrently to A Little Night Music was a studio performance of Blues
for An Alabama Sky in the GBS Theatre for which RADA student lighting
designer Richard Heappey used four Robe CycFX 8s, four LEDWash 300s and six
DL4F fresnels.
http://www.robe.cz
Photos : Linda Carter.
