Crowds have been flocking to California's Pasadena Playhouse to see Ray Charles Live!, the upbeat stage version of the hit movie, before it heads to Broadway in early 2008. The memorable musical numbers are lit by a combined rig of conventional and moving lights, all controlled from ETC's new Eos system.
Lighting Designer Don Holder chose Eos to control the entire rig, in part because it allowed him to have only one lighting system. During technical rehearsals, one Eos was used to program the conventionals while a second Eos handled the automated and LED fixtures. Both desks were contributing to a single show file, using new partitioned control software that allows seamless discrete control by multiple programmers.
The design team for Ray Charles Live! all had experience with other ETC control consoles and were confident that Eos would be up for the task, said Matt Cotter, the moving light programmer for the show.
At the Pasadena Playhouse, Eos seamlessly controls moving lights such as 11 Vari-Lite 2000 spotlights, five Vari-Lite 1000AS, 275 LED Color Kinetics fixtures, four AutoYoke 10° lights and more than 400 ETC Source Four ellipsoidal fixtures and Source Four PARs, programmed into more than 1000 lighting cues. The production demands a great deal of multilayered cueing. There are many moments in the show calling for multiple LED and moving light effects, along with overlapping multipart conventional cues, all running simultaneously. The show features challenging lighting looks, with flashy music numbers, dramatic shafts of light, and pinpoint spots on individual characters instead of washes.
Ray Charles Live! also features ETC Net3 networking, two Net3 RVIs (Remote Video Interfaces), DMX nodes and ETC Sensor dimming. All the ETC equipment for the show was provided by PRG Lighting in New Jersey and E-Ticket Programming in Orange County, California.
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