Shaving Las Vegas

To counterbalance the glaring lights from the Las Vegas strip or the mega-shows by the likes of Celine Dion and Elton John, the Community College of Southern Nevada recently mounted Sweeney Todd, with David M. Schulman serving as LD. “I mostly do corporate lighting here in Vegas,” he said, “but theatre is my true love.”

Schulman says that, despite the number of garish displays in “Sin City,” Las Vegas is full of people like him with extensive musical theatre experience. “It's amazing to see that Vegas is not just the strip shows and nightclubs,” he says. “Everyone on this production has a heavy theatre background, and we worked hard to do interesting and difficult musical theatre.”

Schulman also programmed the show and added that this is the largest community theatre production Las Vegas has seen in five years with 30 actors and 18 members of the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra. It was brought to fruition through 14 donated iSpot 575 moving lights from Coemar (eight I-575EB Spots, six I-575EB Washes) and a grandMA ulta-light console from A.C.T Lighting. The show also had 200 conventional lights (360Q, PAR64s, and ministrips) and four followspots (two Super Troupers and two Lycian 1272s) rented via 4Wall Entertainment Lighting and Cinelease Las Vegas.