Mamma Mia,
the smash-hit ABBA musical, opened in Las Vegas on February 3, 2003, as the eighth full-scale production of the show running concurrently in the world, and with DHA Digital Light Curtains #119 through 136.
Mamma Mia, premiered in April 1999 at the Prince Edward Theatre in London, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, designed by Mark Thompson, and lighting by Howard Harrison, whose rig included eleven eight-lamp Digital Light Curtains that he called "absolutely fantastic for creating a strong backlight, the clean, clear look of Greek sunlight."
While Harrison was nominated for an Olivier Award for his lighting design, the show became a hit world-wide, with productions in Toronto, then an American tour, then Australia, Broadway, Hamburg, Tokyo, and Las Vegas. For each of these productions, the rig was expanded to include six 6-lamp Pitching DLCs, three 6-lamp standard DLCs and eight 8-lamp standard DLCs; the additional six Pitching DLCs were subsequently retrofitted to the London production. Mamma Mia around the world is currently using a total of 136 Digital Light Curtains.
DHA reports that Harrison has found the time to design other shows between stints on Mamma Mia, also putting DLCs to use on the UK and USA tours of Martin Guerre, and The Witches of Eastwick in London and Australia. Created by DHA Lighting in 1991, the Digital Light Curtain, a motorized batten of six or eight low-voltage PAR56 lamps complete with an integrated scroller of up to twenty colors, is an improved version of the motorized light curtains used on shows such as Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera.