Based on Oliver Phommavanh’s best-selling book of the same name Thai’riffic is about an Australian born boy of Thai heritage coming to terms with the fact that most people find his background much more interesting than he does. It’s a play about acceptance for 7-14yr olds. The producers The Theatre Division have been working on getting this show to the stage for four years and from reviews it was well worth the wait.
Lighting designer Martin Kinnane was given a brief that was fairly simple yet tricky; light the actors and make it fun and interesting to watch.
“My biggest challenge was achieving a fun and interesting design without washing out Mic Gruchy’s vision design which totally covered Mark Thompson’s set,” explained Martin. “It’s all about the angles. So we brought in five extra pipes to span the gap between the venues Lx 2 and 3 to create the positions I required. And of course the challenge ahead is that Monkey Baa’s Lend Lease Theatre is very different to the next venue the Seymour’s Everest Theatre.”
The rig is made up of the venues equipment; a variety of ETC Source 4 Zooms, Fresnels and Selador Vivid-R11 Led fixtures. Some LED tape and festooning for set electrics was added to the set.
“What I love about working in theatre for young people is hearing their excitement, the noises they make as a group and the occasional uncensored comment at random moments during a show,” said Martin.
