Cinderella Takes
To The Road - With FocusTrack
6th February 2015
Following its hugely successful run on Broadway,
Rodgers+Hammerstein’s Cinderella has
also taken to the road, launching a new production
that is now touring the USA.
To refine the lighting rig to the practicalities of
touring, budgets and equipment availability, lighting
designer Kenneth Posner and associate lighting
designer John Viesta made some changes to the New
York design for the road, switching the side ladder
moving lights from Martin Mac2000s to Vari-Lite
VL3500s and replacing the overhead VL2500 Wash lights
with LED par cans.
As ever with changes like this, the lighting data in
the console show file no longer produced the correct
lighting on stage, since each fixture type responds
differently to the same DMX data. In this situation
what is needed is clear, precise, accurate data about
what the lights did in each preset focus and in each
cue in the original production, to allow the new
fixture types to be manually matched to that look as
closely as possible and the console data updated.
Clear, precise, accurate data of this type is exactly
what FocusTrack provides - and with the Broadway
production of Cinderella already documented
in FocusTrack, the lighting team - Posner, Viesta,
programmer Hillary Knox and production electrician
Ron Schwier - were able to re-create the show’s
lighting with the new rig quickly and accurately.
“FocusTrack was critical in making the
Cinderella rig transfer possible,”
comments John Viesta, “providing us with a
precise record of each element of the show in New
York that we could match the lights in the touring
rig to. The photos of each lighting cue FocusTrack
takes were also instrumental in ensuring the overall
composition, tone and mood of the show translated in
addition to the separate data for each light.”
“FocusTrack is a powerful tool,” Viesta
adds, “which I’ll be using again on
another show, Beautiful, for both the
upcoming London and touring productions because the
NYC documentation is so precise and has proven to be
very helpful.”
“Knowledge is key when it comes to re-creating
lighting, particularly when you have to change
elements of the rig,” comments
FocusTrack’s Rob Halliday. “FocusTrack
gives you knowledge, letting you easily answer
questions like ‘what was that light doing in
that cue’ or ‘which colours did I
actually use in those scrolls.’ It makes
dealing with the kind of changes to the rig that
Cinderella encountered - and many other
shows also encounter - simple.”
As well as Cinderella, FocusTrack is in action on
many other new London, New York and international
productions, ranging from Shakespeare in
Love and Beautiful - The Carole King
Musical to the Miranda Hart arena tour to the
new Dutch production of Billy Elliot.
Pictures: Paige
Faure and the cast of National Tour of
Rodgers+Hammerstein’s Cinderella, photo © Carol
Rosegg.