In March 2020 lighting designer Jason Bovaird from Moving Light Productions was preparing the bump in for the highly anticipated Encore Theatre Company’s production of Mamma Mia! At Launceston’s Princess Theatre when Covid hit.
Fast forward the clock 18 months and the show has finally opened becoming the highest-selling production in the Princess Theatre’s history.
“It feels like we’ve come full circle being able to be back and have a second chance to stage the show now that restrictions have eased,” commented Jason. “Lucky for Tasmania they have been able to play to full capacity in their venues for a while.”
Jason was able to enter as an essential traveller with a list of conditions from public health for the first 14 days including having multiple Covid tests and only being allowed to leave his accommodation for work or essential reasons such as buying food and always having to wear a mask.
Two years ago when Jason was discussing the show with director Danny Gibson they decided on a production that would have the audience dancing on their feet in the megamix and having a “party-like” feel happening in the auditorium during the megamix.
“This meant that throughout the production I had to be careful not to use all my “tricks” with the huge moving light rig that I had available to me,” commented Jason. “This included even in the overture that is very dance-orientated I needed to be careful that I didn’t go straight into use of very light possible. What I went for was a slow burn build of lighting that gave the audience an idea of what was coming.”
Jason was keen to keen to make a lot of use of the cyclorama with bright, bold and rich colours with a two-tone feel when necessary. Having such a wonderful set that he could texture and throw light onto allowed him to use it to create morning and afternoon through to evening looks that told the story as they went through.
“The ability to be able to use both texture, colour and use of scenic elements gave me a pallet that was bold and bright,” he said. “With musical numbers like Dancing Queen, I was able to use several moving lights creating an up-tempo feel with the beat of the music taking the audience along with the girls singing the song. The opening of ACT TWO allowed me to show an early morning feel by the use of the cyclorama with a two-tone feel using amber and blue.”
The biggest challenge was being able to create different looks throughout the production and be able to tell the story through the use of lighting effects. This was particularly evident in the number Money, Money, Money where Jason created an effect on the set as if money was floating through the air. This was created with custom gobos in the moving lights and was effective as this number is a show-stopping number and needs to be bold and memorable.
The set contained many set electric elements such as all the windows and doors had LED strips around them to be used in the number of Mamma Mia – when opened by cast members the LED lighting would light up the cast’s faces to create an excellent effect. These were controlled by four LED controllers on boxes placed on both PS and OP trucks and controlled through radio DMX installed into the design. Along with the LED strip, there was also outside set electric lights on both PS and OP trucks that needed to be controlled by radio DMX. The interior set also required a radio DMX control system for the practical lights on the set walls.
“Due to the trucks moving so much during the show we needed everything to be radio DMX controlled throughout the set so there was no hindrance of wires during the set changes,” clarified Jason.
The onstage lighting rig consisted of nine LX bars housing 22 x Bumble Bee 330 Spot moving heads, 18 x ShowPRO Pluto 2000 Wash moving heads, 28 x Litecraft LED MultiPARs, four Chauvet Rogue R2 Spots, two Robe Robin DLS LED moving head profile, 18 x Selecon SF 1.2k fresnel, 16 x Selecon PC 1.2k fresnel, six Pat 223 Fresnel 1k and 16 x Selecon Zoom Spot 650W 24° – 40° profile.
The FOH LX bar housed 14 x Selecon SPX 800w Profile 15° – 35° and an advanced truss had six Chauvet UV LED Pars, six Bumble Bee 330 Spot moving heads and six Selecon SF 1.2k Fresnel.
“The Bumble Spots created the texture on the floor and the spots for the actors in various positions,” explained Jason. “For instance in the number Voulez Vous this number had over 85 LX cues with the Bumble Bees and Plutos creating specials for each performer on stage that was auto cued. The Plutos were used so much when the blue curtain was in and created washes on stage and along with on the set.”
The theatre’s Head of Lighting Chris Payne worked out the DMX values during the pre-production so they had an even amount across each bar and were able to bump the show in quickly. Having started the process 18 months prior, they made sure when they pulled the show out that each light had measurements on the bar so that it was in the perfect position for plotting this time around.
The lighting console used was an ETC ION 6k with a full ethernet system run throughout the venue and there were five streams of DMX used to control the system.
The calling of the lighting cues needed to be called by an extremely experienced stage manager as there were over 535 lighting cues in the musical. In the aforementioned Voulez Vous particularly this is a number that would normally be time-coded however stage manager/director Danny Gibson, who is an extremely experienced stage manager and who Jason has had call the last nine years of his shows for Encore Theatre Company, decided to call all 85 lighting cues in this number.
“This is a dance number with accents on each beat and clapping that the cast does where the lights “snap” to each beat and they follow on,” added Jason. “I created a cue then follows on for the operator in time to the second of the orchestra. This number took me around four hours to plot due to the timing of the number and seeing it on stage was worth the four hours in the plot. I would have to say that the entire show doesn’t stop in terms of lighting cues and execution and it is called brilliantly and in time with scene changes and music.”
