The musical We Will Rock You has engulfed Toowoomba’s Empire Theatre stage with energy, fun and a visual feast all combining to make this show a distinctive and celebratory rendition of one of the longest-running musicals in West End history.
Wayne Scott Kermond, from Kermond Creative, has directed We Will Rock You several times over the last few years so knows the show intimately. He has also worked with the scenic elements from Ross James Entertainment some of which were used in this production. It was clear from the get-go that both Wayne and Katie Kermond (Choreographer) had a good picture in their minds as to how the key scenic elements would be used on stage; all the team at the theatre had to do was create a staging design that would incorporate all those bits and pieces and then ultimately light and integrate video into it.
The main components of the hired set are four mobile treads that move around the stage and create different configurations and varied access to the staging platform. Getting these treads around the stage required tight choreography and having smooth movement was essential so the production team opted to replace the stock castors with sixteen HME Services Black Micro Turtle castors. With their low profile of 76mm and load capacity of 300Kg, they made dancing the treads around on stage a breeze.
We Will Rock You has been playing stages since the early 2000s and has had a distinct look to it that people expect – after all it is a show with rock music that ends in what is essentially a rock mega-mix. Lighting designer Ben Hunt had to stay true to its roots of rock but also wanted to give the show a fresh futuristic take that makes the return of rock and roll at the end that much more impactful.
“Restricting the use of open white tungsten light to short key moments during most of the show made its return at the end of the production that much more impactful when the tones of “Globalsoft” fade away and rock and roll is reborn!” said Ben.
With the Empire Theatre being an art deco proscenium arch theatre, its elegant looks don’t lend themselves to being a natural home for a rock show. With that in mind, the production team toyed with different ways to set the show in the theatre using various configurations of truss. In the end, they settled with two main truss arches on the stage floor and atop the stage riser at the rear of the stage, there were two smaller truss arches on either side of the centre LED screen.
This central LED screen was headed by another length of truss that could fly out with the screen when the band is revealed at the end. This worked a treat and having the side wings of the staging platform angle-in helped to visually attract attention to the centre where all the main action happens.
“Additionally, we added four ten metre “truss fingers” that ran out into the auditorium from the stage at two different pitches that conformed to the proscenium arch’s curvature but also broke the look of the plasterwork up to help with the rock and roll vibe,” added Ben. “The stage was extended a further two metres into the house with a small thrust on centre by an additional metre. Wayne wanted that connection with the audience and adding the thrust into the house helped bring the performance right to the edge of the punter’s seats.”
Aside from getting the whole stage plan built so they could get everything to work well together, one of the biggest challenges from a lighting point of view was actually how to get front light in and around these truss creations, especially the four truss fingers that extended into the auditorium up to the first Front of House Bridge.
“This made a large portion of that position un-usable for face light upstage,” explained Ben. “This was only compounded by the fact that cast was playing from stage deck height up to a platform height over 2.6 metres in the air. I can assure you that plenty of time was spent in CAD ducking and weaving shots around shiny aluminium truss to make sure that plenty of energy made it to the stage, so we had the power to play with the LED screens. In the end, most of the face light comes from our ETC Source Four Tungsten HDs and EDLT lenses; their beam control is so good that you don’t see any halation on the truss, something that the older conventional profiles wouldn’t have been able to achieve.”
There was quite a bit of work involved in getting the set electrics sorted for the show. Each of the mobile stair treads has a strip of RGB LED tape in it and there are 24 of those steps. There is also a Van in the show which is fitted with some pin spots as headlights run through a LumenRadio RC4 dimmer. All four mobile treads and the Van needed wireless DMX and the venue invested in some more NEXGEN antFX CRMX wireless transmitter/receivers and they worked flawlessly.
“They are a nice compact unit and powered via 5V USB, so they make for an excellent wireless control solution when 240V supply isn’t an option,” said Ben.
Lighting Rig
Downs Audio Visual & Event Services supplied:
- 32m2 Absen PL3.96W LED Panels
- 36 x Hex LED Pars (Hex 5, Hex 7 and Hex 12)
- 8 x Molefay Duet
Empire Theatre lighting equipment:
- 1 x MA Lighting grandMA2 Light
- 1 x NPU
- 2 x 4port Nodes
- 4 x NEXGEN AntFX wireless DMX TX/RX
- 1 x LumenRadio RC4 M4 dimmer
- 1 x LumenRadio RC4 LumenDim6 dimmer
- 36 x ETC Source Four LED series 2 Tungsten HD
- 16 x ClayPaky AledA K20 CC
- 11 x Martin MAC TW1
- 8 x Martin MAC Quantum Profile
- 6 x ClayPaky Alpha Profile 700
- 6 x Ayrton Ghibli Profile
- 2 x Atomic 3000 Strobe
- 2 x MDG ATMe Hazer
- 2 x HighEnd FQ100 Smoke Machine
- 2 x Robert Juliat Victor Follow spots
All other conventional lighting supplied by Empire Theatre.
Laser Light Shows supplied:
- 1 x 5w RGB Laser
7. Tell me about the programming and execution.
The show was bumped in over three days and then plotted over two before they reached technical and dress rehearsals. From a technical systems point of view, the show had several songs that were SMPTE timecoded with the band playing to click track. For those numbers where visual sync was critical, both Vision and Lighting were fired directly via Timecode. All other cues on the show were called and the video playback was triggered from the grandMA2 via Midi Show Control. All up including called cues from Stage Management and Timecode cues there are over 500 lighting cue points in the production.
“Everyone likes a good light show that gels well with the band and gets the energy pumping in the room,” commented Ben. “And while we have that covered, I have to say I think some of my favourite lighting moments of the show are when we have sequences that have both vision and audio integration built-in with a tight lighting change. There are several sequences and scene transitions in the show that the whole team spent a good chunk of time nailing down and when you see it all come together that is where the magic happens.”
The 32 square metres of LED screen supplied by Downs Audio Visual & Event Services is the new Absen PL3.9W series and Ben says that it looks fantastic, and is well-built, easy assemble screen system. The screens were broken up into vertical strips that were scattered over the truss verticals with one larger 4.5m widescreen on the top deck with smaller 1m wide by 2.5m high screens on either side. Another four 1m wide by 2m high screens were mounted on a track system under the staging deck to mask an entrance tunnel.
Video Design is by Craig Wilkinson from the award-winning video projects collective OPTIKAL BLOC. Craig’s video design brings a contemporary cyberpunk feel to the show and delivers on the fresh look they were shooting for. A Dataton Watchpax 40 media server supplied by OPTIKAL BLOC was used to run over 30 active layers of video, with an NDI live camera input for the two times in the show where live to screen is required.
Written/Lighting: Ben Hunt (Lighting Designer) Head of Lighting – Empire Theatre
Production Manager: Tim Panitz – Operations & Technical Services Manager – Empire Theatre
Audio: Steve Alexander (Sound Design) Head of Audio – Empire Theatre
Video: Craig Wilkinson (Video Design) OPTIKAL BLOC
Photo Credit: Craig Wilkinson – OPTIKAL BLOC
