Leading the way in a triumphant return to the theatre in Melbourne, world-wide smash hit production Come From Away last week was the first major production back on stage, commencing performances at the Comedy Theatre from Tuesday 19 January.
The Australian company was also the first of the global productions of Come From Away to return to the stage, for a strictly limited season that must close on Sunday 21 March, before a national tour.
A much-needed boon to the industry, the production has created 447 jobs, bringing many in the creative industry back to work for the first time since March.
The nine-week encore season is expected to attract over 90,000 visitors to the Comedy Theatre and provide substantial stimulus to the economy and the East End of Melbourne.
This relatively simple show – in both appearance and storyline, belies an extraordinary amount of technical effort that, to the design of the original Broadway production helps create a stunningly coherent vocal quality for performers, and creates a warm and rich musical quality with composers Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s catchy and emotive original folk score.
System Sound assembled the system to designer Gareth Owen’s specifications and it is highly complex and comprehensive in coverage for the entire audience, employing a vast array of d&b speakers in conjunction with an Avid Venue S6L console. To be specific 91 speakers with 26 of these, d&b Y8s, the main left and right line arrays. There is also a centre hang of the compact but powerful T10s. The show was equally amply supplied with subwoofers, with ten V-subs, four below the stage and six hanging on the truss above the audience.
The show also has a surprisingly large count of wireless with 48 radio channels, 38 wireless mics, the twelve cast wearing two radio mic packs each in case of a technical failure (and also due to the cast not leaving the stage during the entire performance) and 21 channels of wireless for roving musicians with wireless instruments and IEMs for the band. The headset microphones worn were the DPA 4066 boom microphones which were customised by hand to perfectly fit each performer.
Anto Shaw and Natalie Riordan run the mix on the Avid Venue S6L. Not only does this show have 2222 Qlab cues, but also such a fast and unrelenting barrage of console automation cues that the operator has to mix the show whilst firing cues with a foot pedal. Whilst this practice exists – rarely – this is certainly the first instance where it was entirely necessitated by the sheer speed of the show’s design.
The mixing console to compound issues further is uniquely situated at the back of the grand circle of the theatre, as far away and high above the stage as possible. This maximises the available premium seats for the producer, maximising profits.
Elite Event Technology supplied the Avid Venue S6L and the d&b audiotechnik gear.
Lighting
The original lighting design is by the legendary Howell Binkley and, as with lots of Howells designs, it features exacting cueing, is very layered, has bright followspots, expertly lit backgrounds and a meticulous floor focus that make this show beautiful from every seat in the house. And yes it has the recently renamed “Binkley Reflections” gobo in the rig.
Respectfully looking after the design in Australia is Hugh Hamilton who says that shifting dates for the remount as situations changed in Victoria made it challenging to remount.
“Hats off to Rodney Rigby and his team for working their way through this,” he added. “COVID-19 has made everything challenging about remounting a production at this time. We were pretty lucky during the shutdown as most of the rig stayed hung. We only had to reinstate the moving lights and the ETC Source Four Lustr 2s. Suzy Brooks and Gints Karklin and Andrew Marshall were all over the reinstate, test and tag, focus and support.”
Personally, the toughest bit for Hugh was going to Melbourne as he lives in Sydney. Before Christmas, he was in Melbourne for a short stint, then as the situation changed he realised he’d have to stay. A two and a half week trip turned into an unplanned 10+ week trip and he missed out of Christmas with his family.
The set electrics were built by OPTO projects and PRG supplied the rig which included MAC Viper Performances as the key lights doing specials and the intense gobo washes over the top of the rest of the rig. MAC Auras supply some colour when required. Added to that are ColorForce Battens, incandescent ETC Source 4s and the ETC S4 Lustr 2s.
“And PAR 64s and 56s!” said Hugh. “It was a scrabble for lamps! These mount on the trees in the set and the ladders offstage, beautiful intense warmth!”
Lycian 1293 followspots lamped at 3kW, are worked hard by the spot operators with Hugh reporting that they are very busy with a lot of two-word pickups.
“It is impossible to call all three spots so Kylie Fletcher, our spot caller, calls spot 2 and 3 while Liz Anderson had to learn Spot 1 before the start of rehearsals,” explained Hugh. “There was a three-day “spot school” before the commencement of tech, the first time around. We got all three operators, Liz, Steph and Corrine, back so this time even after a break they were all over it.”
All is controlled by an ETC Gio console with Warren Letton coming out from the UK production to do the initial programming and to guide Hugh until Rob Cuddon took over as programmer, during this remount whilst also assisting Hugh.
“My favourite cue is a beautiful one where all the PARS are blazing across the stage from one side and there is this beautiful filled-in warmth that only the intensity of PAR64s could supply,” added Hugh. “With the loss of those globes, I will savour that cue as long as the show lasts – anyone who sees the show “a minutes silence” is the line. There is also a fantastic cue in Darkness and Trees with a big amber change after the darkness is ending.”
Hugh relished being back in a theatre and after 25 years of doing this professionally, walking into a theatre is like stepping back into an old set of shoes, it all just feels natural.
He is lucky to be flat out setting up a tour of Wicked in Korea and then back to Sydney to work on another of Howell’s designs Hamilton.
Come From Away Australia is the first of five companies of Come From Away to open. It is also the first of Howell Binkley’s designs to be remounted since his death.
“Howell came to Australia to light this version and there were a number of us in the auditorium thinking of him,” reflected Hugh. “As an aside, it is also the first show in Melbourne’s commercial theatre scene to reopen, so that’s very special.”
