Stage Directions: From the very opening of The Wedding Singer, which thrusts the audience into the middle of a spirited wedding party, the Tony-nominated musical serves up an unabashedly heartfelt flurry of emotions as it follows the story of wanna be rock star Robbie Hart as he loses and then finds love. It is a basic tale that resonates with virtually anyone -- and in the retelling of it this summer at Boca Raton’s Olympic Heights Performing Arts Center, Clifford Spulock added to its impact with a vividly expressive lighting design that featured CHAUVET Professional fixtures.
3 comments:
The Wedding Singer isn't the first show that comes to mind when talking about emotion-inducing lighting design, but the article does a great job of outlining what designer Clifford Spulock achieved in this production. The show certainly lends itself to the use of highly saturated colors, and the fixtures (particularly the COLORado Batten 144 Tour instruments) certainly reflect that. The only issue I have with the article is the challenge of visualizing the plot with the descriptions written out. It certainly gets the general point across, but I would certainly love to see a photo from the show with the detailed breakdown from the designer about what instrument they used, where they hung it, color choice, etc. Right now I feel the article is caught between wanting to do this and just another generic review. I do, however, appreciate how Spulock approached the overall storytelling of the musical and the color choices needed to reflect the different scenes. Overall, I am left wanting to see the plot, see the cues, and the show itself.
There are so many things I love about lighting. After everything else is set up, only then the lighting designer can make his magic work. Working with the many colors and patterns the costume designer brings into the show, and then the set designer with their setting and placement of objects, the lighting designer has to do everything last. Coming in and focusing the show, then after a few hours or days of that, they sit down and program every single intensity change, focus change, or movement the lights perform. This all has to be very exact but also very creative and free. Lighting designer Clifford Spulock talks about many of the lighting instruments he used for his design of The Wedding Singer. This is a wonderful show where part of it takes place in a wedding. Using Rogue R1X Spot fixtures and 12 COLORado Batten 144 Tour fixtures were key to Spulock's design.
I had high hopes for this article because it talks about lighting and The Wedding Singer, two things I like. The article irked me in the first paragraph when they said that they used Chauvet instruments. My high school, while I was there, was in the later stages of switching out from using Chauvet instruments such as the ones mentioned in the article because they are temperamental and cheap. A COLORado can create a nice wash effect but it has very limited control over the beam and quality. The images the article provides show that the design of the show was good, but due to the fixtures, the quality of the concepts were not conveyed through the final product. I am saddened by the fact that professionals in the lighting industry use Chauvet instruments. I can understand if they are used by a high school or a small university, but as professionals, there should be the opportunity for some better investments. This is also a Tony nominated show, so it’s not like its a low budget show or anything.
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