The Wedding Singer The Musical Comedy, based on the smash-hit Hollywood movie, has opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Adelaide and will tour the country.
Lighting designer Declan O’Neill discussed with the Director Alister Smith all things neon, bold colour choices, bright and powerful.
“We have a running theme we call the “cartoonistic vignette” which we use to pull focus and help guide the story,” said Declan. “For all the large, more rock feel numbers, we have added in some cool effects, blinders and beams.”
This year Declan wanted to design the show, not in a signature way but rather challenge himself to light the show with new techniques. This show uses a lot of set electrics, so a lot of focus went into how to best incorporate it. There are over 85 channels of set electrics, some of them wirelessly, and these help frame the show. This includes several runs of LED strip, wireless led strip and neonflex. They also tried to avoid all blackouts and keep the stage as colourful as possible.
“Here you will find us using shutters, gobos and different colours to set the scene,” added Declan. “The stage floor is a concrete grey, so we have opted to light more of the stage than hide what’s not being used.”
One of the biggest challenges Declan had was using a lot of shapers in the moving lights to create scenes, cut-outs and corridors of light. In some of the bigger numbers, especially the song All About The Green he used shapers in every cue, that song averaging a cue every four seconds.
Resolution X supplied the lighting and, according to Declan, have done an incredible job in supporting the production, going above and beyond to get the show up and running. The main lighting fixtures were 23 x Martin MAC Encores CLD, 20 x Pluto 4000s, eight Pluto 2000s, 16 x ShowPRO PixPAR 3, 16 x Martin RUSH MH6, 12 x Nitec Blinders and 20 x ShowPRO LED EProfiles. The show is run off an EOS Gio with a secondary Gio as a backup. Set electrics were run through the LED Drivers made by Resolution X.
“I would also like to point out, the Martin MAC Encores arrived in Australia two days before being sent out on a show and haven’t missed a beat,” said Declan.
The show was initially programmed on L8 previs and then adapted in the theatre with Declan also programming. The show is called to an operator, however, some of the numbers are timecoded due to certain parts of the song being so precise. There are over 500 lighting cues in the show, with about 300 of them called.
“My two favourite moments are the end of Casualty of Love because to the non-technical viewer, it’s the first time lighting makes a really big front presence and All About The Green due to the number of shapers used, its timing and how it guides the storyline,” remarked Declan.
This show is one of the first original productions of this scale to be put on in the post-Covid world and Declan says he feels so lucky and grateful to be a part of this amazing team.
“Australia has openly welcomed theatre back and it’s great to see audience capacity back to 100%!” he noted. “The urge to get out and be creative when you’re stuck at home for 12 months is sky-high, so to be able to put it to good use has been amazing.”
When Declan is not working as a designer, he is usually found at Bunjil Place in Melbourne working in the lighting department.
“I enjoy working on all sorts of events there from local, national and international acts,” he said. “We have a lot of homegrown shows and events there that I take part in creating from a lighting point of view. As for designing, we are just coming out of the Covid world, so we will see what opportunities arise.”
