Theatrical Lighting Uk

Review: Peter Pan, York Theatre Royal, until September 3

PETER Pan is the fulfilment of artistic director Damian Cruden’s vision of a theatre of all the talents for all the people in York.

It brings together the director, writer, composer and lighting designer from the ground-breaking The Railway Children; it utilises to the max the possibilities Cruden envisaged for the in-the-round re-configuration of the Theatre Royal auditorium; and it assembles a cast drawn from diverse strands of the theatre’s work.

Gathered together are professional players from this season’s repertory ensemble; three bright young things from company-in-residence Belt Up Theatre; and 44 child and teenage youth-theatre performers co-ordinated by Young People’s director Kate Plumb. This truly is community theatre.

Cruden’s Peter Pan is a celebration of the power of theatre and the act of making theatre, reinforcing the link with what we all do as children: creating imaginary worlds from what is around us, just as JM Barrie did in his 1904 play.

Even the “flying” is done as children might do so at home (rather than with wire), albeit with magical extra ‘wings’ of dry ice and Christopher Madin’s wonderful music.

Playwright Mike Kenny usually steers towards the dark side in his adaptations, and at first he appears to be doing so again with a cutting-edge opening that may scare younger children.

Quickly he switches to playful, as all 11 children from one of the four teams of Darlings and Lost Boys (some of whom who need more volume and slower delivery) engage in a fight in the Kensington Gardens abode.

The worlds of Edwardian London bedroom and Neverland overlap in Dawn Allsopp’s magical design, with wardrobes whose drawers double as steps, plus a ship’s sails, a mast and this season’s obligatory trapdoors and risers.

Rather than the memory play that framed The Railway Children, here Kenny has the children shape the story, led by Wendy (the superb Laura Soper on press night), while Belt Up’s Pirates, Dominic Allen, Joe Hufton and James Wilkes, move the scenery.

The humour is the ace in the pack: Cornelius Macarthy’s nimble Peter is often childishly amusing rather than the meddlesome Puck figure of other productions; Martin Barrass is a double delight as Nana, the dog-nurse casually walking on two legs, and the dim Irish Smee; and Robert Pickavance’s Hood has a dash of Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow about him.

James Wilkes’s little pieces of comic business as a rather posh pirate are an added pleasure.

RGB and CMY Colour Mixing - Crossfades and Control - On Stage Lighting

Colour mixing facilities is rapidly becoming the norm on many types of show across a range of budgets. Lighting fixtures in all markets are now sporting technology that allows for a range of mixed colours, either in the form of CMY subtractive mixing or additive LED based mixing using RGB, RGB+W and more.

At the cheap end of the market, RGB LED PARs and floods are finding their way into every DJ rig, while at the other end of the scale pro kit such at the ETC Selador range and Vari*Lite VLX colour mixing engine are providing high intensity, consistent colours for shows all over the world. For the moment, this looks like the future even though there is still a place for good ol’ white light sources and gel filters.

While these technologies vary in output quality across price ranges, all are rapidly improving but they present the lighting programmer with a specific programming problem. It’s possible to control simple colour mixing equipment with the simplest of desks .  But whatever control you are using, how do you create acceptable colour transitions with colour mixing lighting fixtures?

Colour mixing technology might be relatively new, but the question isn’t and is only too familiar to anyone that used colour washes as the basis for their concert and theatre lighting or lit a cyc by mixing multi coloured battens. Getting from one “state” to another in full view of the audience without accidentally visiting some unwanted colours en route.

In lighting, we commonly use crossfades to provide a smooth and seamless transition between lighting looks on stage. Cross fading of light intensity isn’t too complicated, some fixtures get brighter, some less bright or go out altogether.

The only possible issue is that intensities that are remaining roughly the same in each scene may fade down a little with the outgoing state, before being pushed back up again by the incoming cue – causing an unwanted dip. We have this mostly covered by dipless crossfade features within the lighting desk or the judicious dexterity when pushing faders by hand. We can also use split fade times or even channel specific fades or waits to overcome this and achieve visually pleasing crossfades.

The issue with intensity dips is a function of the transition from look to look in a fairly linear format – Scene 1 fades down, Scene 2 Fades up at the same time and in the middle somewhere, we have the potential for unwanted results while the intensity levels float to their new values.

The stage lighting handbook

A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting

Discovering stage lighting

Stage lighting design, the art, the craft, the life

Introduction to stage lighting, the fundamentals of theatre lighting design