Six: Teen Edition
Design notes
For Six: Teen Edition, lighting was at the forefront. The show is essentially a pop concert in which each performer/queen has a unique performance piece. This presented a vast departure from our school’s production of Hairspray the prior year and allowed me to create a show in which spectacle was not a distraction, but rather a part of the show’s identity. Examples of work are shown below starting with the finished product towards the top and my process being shown as you scroll down.
Timelapse of show taken at final tech rehearsal.
Image/Concept Board created as a starting point on how to gather ideas (Tudor halls and windows pictured along with modern day pop concerts). I ended up using window gobos similar to the windows pictured along with chandeliers as an homage to how theatres used to be lit in England and for some more glitz. I drew inspiration for looks and effects from concerts pictured here along with watching behind the scenes videos of concerts (Eurovision, Beyonce, Superbowl halftime shows).
Heart of Stone introduction. Begins with monologue from Jane Seymour (in white dress) and moves into dance a sequence reflecting on her life.
Whenever I’m programming a song for a musical I usually have footage from dance rehearsals next to me. This helps me to track what’s going on and emphasize moments in the choreography. Example of such depicted above
Patching and Cue list examples. I patched a little over 2000 addresses/attributes for intelligent fixtures. The show ended up having a total 1398 cues for about a one hour show. Moving light programming, conventional aiming, rigging, wiring, patching, and troubleshooting were all done by me for the show. The show probably took about 2-3 weeks to program but planning started about 1-1.5 months in advance of tech week.
Script annotated with cues and descriptions.
Light plot for the rig used during the show. There were some changes to layout but we rented 14 moving lights and bought 3 chandeliers amounting to about $12,000 worth of equipment that I helped budget and get approval for.
Magic Sheet used for programming during tech week. Utilizes direct selects, groups, color palettes, and presets.
Pre-Viz used to select best fixtures to rent and where they would be best positioned. Also allowed for preliminary preparation of effects and looks.
Preliminary planning I started drafting up after musical selection was announced in Spring of 2023 (1 year before the actual performance). Drafted on the back of a solfege warm-up from choir rehearsal.