Two icons of Australian theatre, Nancye Hayes and Reg Livermore have combined their much-lauded talents in Turns, a “pantomime with a twist” – where no matter what, the show must simply go on.
Produced by Christine Dunstan and with lighting designed by Trudy Dalgleish, the show has been touring both cities and regional theatres for several months. And everywhere the show has gone so has a vital tour member – the ETC Element console.
ETC’s Element console was designed expressly for modest rigs and maximum hands-on fader control. Affordable and easy to use, Element packs in the fundamentals of lighting control.
The lighting rig for Turns consists of purely analogue light fixtures which can vary in model from venue to venue and so lighting operator and technical manager Jo Elliot is relieved to have one constant with her in the form of the Element console.
“At each theatre I then only have to update cues and sometimes change fade times to suit the dimmers in the venue,” said Jo. “I found that the Element adjusts quite easily to accommodate the different dimmers I’ve come across so it’s been really quite good.”
Jo particularly liked having 40 submasters at her fingertips so she could easily grab different subs if there was an emergency.
“They are also very good for plotting because I will often plot the show without anyone standing in the light and so they give me the ability to adjust levels very quickly,” she said. “The spreadsheet view in blind plotting makes life very easy as it is simple to quickly scroll through. We have a couple of channels that I have to absolutely make sure are in certain cues because if they are not it’s a total show stopper and it’s really easy in blind to check that they haven’t accidently been knocked out whilst I was plotting.”
Jo also discovered that the Element console is easy to patch and she likes that she can patch with either a channel number or dimmer address as her first number.
“I find that adding and changing cue times is very straightforward,” she added. “We have a little chase and adding it to a cue or submaster is simple. In fact it’s an easy console to figure out quickly, very user friendly.
“The Element’s small size makes it great for touring. It can be set up next to the sound console FOH and as I’m also Technical Manager, that is very handy as I can hear and see the show from that position. Quite often the venue may not have a riggers remote for me to use so I can pick up the console and set it up front of stage and access the rig from there.”
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