Here You Come Again is a musical comedy full to the brim with Dolly Parton’s hits, telling the story of a fan’s journey, guided by Dolly teaching life lessons.
The show had been designed in London by renowned international lighting designer Tim Delling, however, the Australian Producers chose to go with an Australian design team in both lighting and sound. Lighting the Australian production is Jason Bovaird, who says director Gabe Barre, who is also the writer and director of the show, was extremely clear about certain parts of the show.
“However, knowing my stylistic design processes of Big Production Numbers, Gabe wanted to use my ability in providing ‘flash’ when necessary and yet also in the ’story’ moments to go for a very naturalistic stylistic look,” commented Jason. Given that the show was set in an attic and had many ‘concert’ moments, he allowed me to explore all elements of this style. Big and Bold.”
Having watched Tim Delling’s work, Jason knew that the lighting needed to be impressive with his own style stamped on it and yet still keeping it accurate to what the director and set designer (Paul Wills) would want.
“I wanted to be able to use my unique ‘concert style lighting that I’m renowned for in musical theatre, yet this time deliver a product of unexpected design elements that no one has seen me do before,” added Jason. “Collaboration is a significant part of Gabes process to the point he notates every single lighting cue in the script for tech purposes etc. The process was intense, intelligent, collaborative, and passionate. In many moments, Gabe would have a moment in his head, and I would have plotted the moment. We were both in sync with each other, which is very rare. I wanted to be able to, in the concert moments, create a huge, big look and in the story book moments and ballads keep a simplistic, elegant and still design paying homage to Paul Wills’ set design of a wood grain with the colour palette of ambers, straw, and rich saturated concert moments.”
Jason says that the biggest and most exciting thing for him was the new design of the “DOLLY” LED sign that flies in at the end of the show during the mega mix. It was necessary to ensure that the sign looked iconic of Dolly’s signature and was impressive. The LED sign, custom-designed by Jason and built by Imported Theatre Fabrics, consisted of 187 individually channelled LED specialised bulbs and an LED Neon strip surrounding it. The sign is programmed with over 35 different chase effects.
Jason’s biggest challenge was the short time frame for bump-in, given that they bumped in on Sunday, July 7th, and had their first audience on Friday, and it was a brand new show. The pre-rig took place on the Sunday night and by Tuesday, they were teching the show.
“We literally had a day only to tech the show and then dress the show,” said Jason. “With a brand new production that is a quick turnaround. The other challenge I faced was designing the show to be both tourable and impressive, while also ensuring it could set up quickly in each venue and be previewed by Thursday or Friday night. The lighting rig was an LED base rig with a moving light rig that was quick and easy to rig.”
The show features extensive set lighting; the roof itself has LED Pixels running up and down the rafters, which are individually channelled and allow control of each LED pixel, creating exciting chases throughout the show. The roof pixels have over 250 channels with an RGB base, allowing for a wide array of colours for the show.
“One of the cool effects I was able to create was the police siren look for the show, which had several effects running over the top,” added Jason. “We also had string lights running throughout the set that were split across the set, allowing us to be able to section the lights for each part of the set. This created an excellent effect when we incorporated the magic moments of twinkling throughout the set.”
The lighting rig consisted of a complete LED moving light rig supplied by Jason’s own company, Moving Light Productions, which was awarded the contract for lighting design and production management of the show. Jason decided to purchase a full moving light rig for the show rather than hiring from a reputable lighting company.
“I had been using Mayabao LED 800 and LED 400 moving spots for the last year on some of our other shows,” he explained. “I found the lights to be excellent in terms of brightness, quick responses and the weight of the light for its brightness was excellent.”
The lighting rig consisted of 14 x Mayabao LED 800, 13 x Mayabao LED 400, 15 x Vello Light LED moving wash, 7 x LED Chauvet Ovation LED Profiles, 12 x Chauvet Ovation Reve E3, 36 x Chauvet Ovation Reeve P3 Par Can, 4 x LED Little Bee 450 Moving Wash, 20 x Chauvet Ovation CYC 1 FC, 14 x ETC Source Four 26 Degree, and 36 x NSP Par Cans. Added to that were a couple of Robert Juliat followspots, an MDG Hazer, and an ETC Gio @5 console for control.
Jason did his own programming, pre-visualising the show due to the tight time frame he had to meet. He spent around 20 hours pre-visualising the show in the studio and then went into the theatre to update the show and positions, etc. The show was operated by his head of lighting. Around 680 lighting cues are programmed, and around 350 of them are called. Sixteen streams of DMX are run across the show, with at least five streams dedicated to the floor and set lighting.
Photos: Cameron Grant
