Receiving excellent reviews for its outstanding performances and production values, the recent amateur production of Dear Evan Hansen performed by CCADS Theatre in The King’s Theatre, Portsmouth saw some highly original uses of Ayrton Stradale fixtures in an imaginative design by lighting designer Christopher Pratt.
Pratt, who has a long-established working relationship with CCADS, incorporated 15 Ayrton Stradale into his design, utilising the shutter sets to carve out precise areas of action and track the actors across the stage.
“Our director, John-Paul McCrohon, wanted to set the mood as an overarching sense of isolation,” says Pratt. “The idea was to light the minimum amount of space needed for each scene – which is where the concept of the hard line shuttering came in. I therefore insisted all the movers overhead should have shutter blades, and, being familiar with Ayrton Mistral spots and Diablo profiles, was keen to explore the new Stradale. Stradale combines the features of Mistral and Diablo with no compromise on the second gobo wheel or the shutter set.”
Pratt approached the show’s lighting supplier, ITP Lighting Ltd, with his request, who increased its investment in more Stradale units which has increased their hire stock.
“This allowed me to have three bars of 5 Stradale profiles overhead, which worked perfectly in the 9.5m x 6.5m x 6m performance space. The amount of hanging set was minimal which left me with lots of freedom to hang lighting bars and rig the Stradales where I wanted. It gave me a nice balance between keeping the movers hidden and covering the full expanse of the stage. I had complete freedom to work with different angles, create different looks, and get as much from the Stradale as possible.”
With only two days of technical rehearsal – and with amateur actors only available in the evening – Pratt had to work fast. “It was a brand new set, so we were going in blind,” he says. “On Day 1 we set out the boundaries of what each scene needed, and because of the lack of time, I used only one Stradale to light each scene. This gave me the square/rectangular space I needed to ensure we covered every location needed as we blocked through the scenes.
“On Day 2, I filled in the details using the rest of the Stradale fixtures, sometimes using as many as six for each square. I was able to make fine adjustments with the actors in place, adjusting angles and perfecting timings, smoothing and blending the overlaps and pauses, achieving smooth graduations.”
For the more complex effects, such as creating a moving corridor that would open in front and close behind an actor, Pratt says it was “rather like tracking the actor with shutter blades. I set up a preset for the corridor of light I wanted. Then I brought a shutter in to cover the entire beam path. Then recorded each step taking out that shutter blade as a cue and used follow-ons to have them blend into one another. I then repeated it the other way if I was closing the corridor. The Stradales have a nice smooth movement, especially when used so subtly, which really worked well for these effects.”
Pratt says that Stradale’s rotating frame assembly made ‘a big difference’ in the speed and ability to achieve the precise angles he required: “Most of it was at 90° where not much adjustment to the angle of the shutter blades was required.
“But in several scenes the angle was offset, so I would bring in the shutter blades, rotate the assembly ±90° and adjust the shutter blades until I could cover all the awkward angles to achieve a perfect square. Stradale gave me great flexibility – to have ±90° of rotation plus the angle adjustment of the individual blades was a great help. It is a really nice development of Diablo’s feature that was essential for this production.”
Pratt also found Stradale’s gobo selection to be ‘very theatre-friendly’ and the richer blue to be a lot deeper yet still visible, even over 7m-10m. “I’m a big fan of blue so having that deep blue for some of the sadder moments was great. It was also my first time trying out the CTO filter (which is also in Mistral and Diablo) for face light and warm colour temperatures. I’d previously used the colour flags and it’s always difficult to reel in colour filters to get a nice face light. But the CTO filter’s sole purpose is for precisely this function. It’s really easy to get a nice repeatable colour from Stradale, and by using one filter instead of a mix of 3 CMY flags, I got the punch I needed without having too much in the gate.”
Läs mer om Stradale Profile HÄR
photo credits: © Tony Neil
