It’s a gamble that mostly comes up short. By contrast, Woolf and the Wondershow’s production of Cages succeeds in spectacular style. The show takes place in a downtown Los Angeles warehouse that has been transformed into a Victorian wonderland.
Thursday, March 05, 2020
ETC equipment freeing for immersive Cages
It’s a gamble that mostly comes up short. By contrast, Woolf and the Wondershow’s production of Cages succeeds in spectacular style. The show takes place in a downtown Los Angeles warehouse that has been transformed into a Victorian wonderland.
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Immersion creates a sense of space and atmosphere that an audience can interact with other than just watching. They feel as though they are apart of the world, watching as a spectator, someone different from who they are outside of the performance space. When done right it can help the audience relax and connect with the performance more than just spectating the story on a stage as an outsider. Instead of only thinking about the world on stage, a designer must include the audience into the world they create. By bringing the audience into the light it adds a sense of being seen and being apart of rather than in the dark (how we normally see audiences). I don’t think this show is the best representation of immersive theater done well, this article seems more about the praise of the ETC Ion Xe for this particular production, but I would be very interested to see this production and see how they involve the audience. The one photo included in the production is stunning and I would love to see how the lighting designer intentionally used discreet but highly technical lighting to impact the emotion and feeling of this show.
It’s rare that I can read an entire article like this and still have no idea what this show would look or feel like. But I think that’s a good thing in this instance. I love hearing about lighting design inspiration and how designers and their team craft a space or evoke a feeling, but it’s rarer to hear about the technology that makes that happen. The overlap and constant dialogue between art and technology, craft and hardware, that creates lighting design is what keeps drawing me to it. Having multiple uses and scopes of use for a space demands a different way of thinking than a typical theatrical venue, especially when the quote-unquote venue and the performance space are merged as they are in this instance. Lighting for “immersive theatre” is also its own challenge, with a roving audience you have to keep all possible points of view in mind and be open to adaptation and evolution with the run.
The power of ETC systems is simply incredible. The expanse of their product range is so enormous. They are leaders in theatrical lighting, architectural lighting and control, as well as even some rigging. They truly have their foot in every open door and it’s really amazing to me. This project seems very cool with the fact that the waitstaff is able to control the show from a wall panel if they cannot get a board operator to operate the Ion Xe that the show is programmed on. It is also incredible that over 1000 cues are programmed to this console. Their controlling systems seem to be unstoppable. I am always very interested to see where ETC is going next. With the rather recent purchase of High End Systems, I feel like we are going to see a lot more of High End’s top notch moving technology paired with ETC’s LED technology into some truly amazing fixtures.
I wish this article featured more images from the production, however, despite the lack of visual aids, I can still get a general grasp on what the show felt like. I really like how they made a separate system with easy access for the lobby area that doesn’t need the entire system to be running for that area to function. One aspect of this that amazes me is the fact that they 3D printed their own barn doors for this show. In my head I think it may have been just as easy to add or create and add a special gobo to the fixture. I find it amazing but not that surprising that a 90 minute show has 1000 cues. In a typical show that would be shocking and maybe even concerning, but because this is an immersive show, lighting is a major component in world building which is vital. I wish I had the opportunity to see this show because I think it sounds really cool.
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