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| Product Potpourri | |
| Now that summer is upon us, technical directors across the country offer insights into their favorite products, as well as forecasts of what they think will be the new hot trends, as they prepare for the approaching season. | |
| By Adam Rose | |
| Issue: June/July 2001 | |
Technical Director Trinity Repertory Company Providence, RI Background: Worked at Trinity Rep for 9 years, TD for 4 seasons; Freelancing with sound; record producer. What will be hot for the upcoming season? “Underscoring plays really seems to be moving to the forefront. I see a lot of that happening in theater. We just upgraded our sound system here because a lot of directors have been doing that. Digital mixing boards—although they’re a bit tricky—are being used more and more. Computer-based soundboards can turn the volume up and down, and the mics on and off in a pre-designed plan.” Favorite products: “I like the Meyer’s speakers. I think the UP-1 speakers are very smooth and natural sounding for the human voice. They have a great dispersion. With Yamaha O2-R’s digital mixing board’s multiple channel capabilities, you can do live mixes and run mics into it. I also like Yamaha Pro-Tools; it makes editing much faster. It lets you build and layer sound cues.” |
|
| Iain
Campbell Assistant Production Manager Court Theater Chicago, IL Background: Worked for the Court Theatre for two years; also freelances as a production manager throughout the Chicago area. What will be hot for the upcoming season? “For lights, it’s fine light projectors. This is a projection unit that uses a modified Source Four and a 1,000W lamp. It uses up to 20 images that scroll back and forth, allowing you to show multiple images at one time. It’s definitely a cost-effective answer to affording projections on a large scale. Favorite products: “An Obsession-2 board. It’s pretty impressive.” |
|
| Rob
Duggan Technical Director Shakespeare Theatre Washington, DC Background: Served as technical director at Music Theatre North, Gloucester Stage Company; worked at Hudson Scenic. What will be hot for the upcoming season?
Favorite products: “I like Vari-Lites. I like how they’re manufactured. If you use a Vari-Lite, you have to hang fewer instruments. They can scroll color and position automatically. Some of them can actually change focus. If you’re hanging a stage wash, you don’t have to hang as many. With moving lights, you can actually change their focus too. You can do a lot more with less instruments. For sound, I like the mini-disc systems. They’re CD quality, and they’re easy to record and cue. Computers are the way to go. Inside the computer, you can download any system, burn it onto a CD and then run the show from it. I think some systems play back digitally. Nowadays you can just go click-to-click, as opposed to reel-to-reel.” |
|
| Amy
Frank Production Manager Foothill Theatre Company Nevada City, CA Background: At Foothill for one year; previously company manager at Weston Playhouse in VT. What will be hot for the upcoming season? “For lighting, I like Source-Fours. They’re low energy, they have a long life and they’re easier to handle because they stay cooler. Favorite products: “In our theater we use an NSI lighting board. The language with its software is easy to understand; it’s compatible to many different types of dimmers, old and new. It’s wonderful because we just got it and we were working with 20-year old equipment. It has a lot of tricks. As for sound, we use a dual CD deck. We have three amps and an option of a third CD deck. It can have up to 20 channels on our sound board.” |
|
| Andrew
Hopson Sound Designer Indiana Repertory Theatre Indianapolis, IN Background: Serves as resident sound designer at Indiana Rep. since 1998; freelancing before that. What will be hot for the upcoming season? “For playback I’d say SFX by Stage Research. This is good for the non-Broadway theaters. It’s a hard-drive based system, so I can make changes and sound cues quickly. I can sit in the house and edit from there. It’s also fully automated—10 channels, not stereo sound. It’s very fast and easy to work with.” Favorite products: “I’d love to work with an LCS board. It does what SFX does, but it has a little more flexibility. I also like the Sound Forge by Sonic Foundry. If I want to add reverb, I can do it quickly through this program. Another program called Vegas allows me to do a lot of complicated cues. It’s like text-processing for sound.” |
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Technical Director South Coast Repertory Costa Mesa, CA Background: Served as technical director for South Coast Rep since 1985; before that, he was TD at Grove Shakespeare. What will be hot for the upcoming season? “We’re seeing more of the fancy, high-end stuff moving in. More people want moving lights in. There are something out now by Premier Lighting that’s a low-cost image projector issued with Shakespeare and Source Four Par or a flood. It provides a low-cost to medium-scale projection that’s pretty reasonably priced. It’s fast and inexpensive.” Favorite products: “I like plywood. The whole world of engineered lumber is a wonderful thing. It’s straight and strong. And you know what it will hold. Plus, it’s available.” |
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| Tim
O’Neil Northern Stage Production Manager White River Junction, VT Background: Freelances in New England area, as well as Spoleto Theater Festival and overseas work. What will be hot for the upcoming season? “Pretty much the whole Source-Four line. You can rotate the barrel and it’s much easier to focus. They’re just nice, clean, crisp instruments. And of course moving lights have become very popular in lots of venues. You can do almost anything with them.” Favorite products: “For lighting, we love the Source-Fours. The ETC Obsession is the lightboard of choice—anything post-1999.” |
|
| Jim
Othuse Scenic/Lighting Designer Omaha Community Playhouse Omaha, NE Background: Has done stints in New York, Atlanta, the Historic Springer Opera House in Columbus GA; has worked at Omaha Playhouse for 26 years. What will be hot for the upcoming season? “Certainly ETC products are popular right now.” Favorite products: “I use a lot of ellipsoidals and very few moving lights. We have a lot of Strand fixtures in our inventory. That’s what I’m moving towards. They produce very good light quality. They’re user-friendly and hold up very well under constant use over the years. They’re also low-maintenance. The quality of light that they produce is the key. I also have a lot of ETC Source-Fours and Wybron Color Rams (Changers), which can produce lots of different colors. We have four Lycian Stage Lighting’s followspots in our mainstage theater. I also use LeMaitre smoke machines for fog and haze.” |
|
| Hana
Sellars Technical Director Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co. Washington, DC Background: Recently finished fourth season as TD at Woolly Mammoth. What will be hot for the upcoming season?
Favorite products: “I work with a program called Peak. It’s a MAC-based program. It has those fine-tuned editing functions that are so important these days. You can also add a lot of effect work into it. It functions like a lot of conventional sound programs out on the market with a level of intuitiveness that’s been very helpful.” |
|
| John
Stone Sound Designer North Shore Music Theatre Beverly, MA Background: Has worked at North Shore for six years, started as an intern; currently freelancing in Boston area. What will be hot for the upcoming season? “We just purchased a new mixing console by Midas. It’s called the Heritage 3000. It’s got some great features—basic automation, mute-scene automation—so you can click from scene-to-scene. It works well as a front-of-house board, and it sounds great. It’s a real clean sound for the theater.” Favorite products: “We have a bunch of Sennheiser Wireless that are top of the line. The SK-50 is a first-rate body pack transmitter. We’re looking at the EM-3532 that’s part of the 3000 Series These receivers can go with the SK-50s. It’s a relatively new unit that’s well designed. You can connect it to a computer and monitor your reception and battery levels from the computer. The reception’s good and it’s very user-friendly. I also like the Soundcraft Broadway Series boards. It’s set up like a lot of the digital consoles, without being one itself. The signal is still analog with all sorts of automation and digital recallability. It can all be controlled through a computer, and it’s all modular. You can have 100 inputs, but only have maybe 40 physical faders taking up seats in your theater. I also like EAW’s subwoofer speaker system. The SB 1000s are fairly compact and they sound great. They’re built very well with a lot of power and a tight sound.” |
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Master Electrician Skylight Opera Theatre Milwaukee, WI Background: Works as a resident lighting designer for University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee dance department; also local freelance lighting designer. What will be hot for the upcoming season? “I have to say ETC products. For example, their Dimmer-Doubler allows small companies and schools to double the amount of signals they have. I also use Technobeams. These are juiced-up versions of Cyberlights. It’s a torpedo-shaped unit that hangs over the stage, and you can program it to cover specials.” Favorite products: “Data flash and strobe units. You can use them for lightning and fireworks. They’re easy to program. You don’t have to go to school to use them. I also like the MR-16 Birdie. It’s a small ParCan that you can put at the front of the stage and use as a footlight. It’s very versatile.” |
|
| Japhy
Weideman Production Manager/ Resident Lighting Designer Arkansas Repertory Theatre Little Rock, AR Background: Worked two years at Arkansas Rep as a resident lighting designer but also as a production manage; also was the assistant lighting designer at Santa Fe Opera for five years. What will be hot for the upcoming season? “We actually just purchased a new console—it’s the Strand 520. It does more of the thinking for you. I can patch a scroller for an attribute that’s on the channel which is great. Lighting companies like Strand and ETC are trying to figure out a way to let the boards think for you.” Favorite products: “CXI Color Freighters. It’s a new technology of changing colors. You mix any color you want, depending on the percentage of a combo of two channels. It makes your light cues magical.” sd |
It
was comedy every night while A Funny Thing Happened On The
Way To The Forum played at the Skylight Opera House. Master
electrician Doug Vance thinks ETC’s products are the
wave of the future.
