Directed by Anne Bogart and written by Charles Mee, the Siti Company’s bobrauschenbergamerica is a fantastical road trip through the American landscape, written as Robert Rauschenberg, one of America's greatest living artists, might conceive it. Traveling easily through time, the play is a glorious collage of images and sensations—Rauschenberg's childhood home, a human martini, a pizza delivery boy, the world's worst collection of chicken jokes…
In a return engagement at Dance Theatre Workshop in NYC, April 23-May 16, 2010, bobrauschenbergamerica was rethought by its designers. Live Design asks lighting designer Brian H. Scott to speak about his thoughts on the lighting.
Live Design: How are you rethinking or re-designing your work for this revival of the piece? Are there any new design or technology elements that have been added…Or deleted?
Brian H. Scott: Much of the rethinking I am doing is in service of streamlining the production for a more intimate venue, however, as the world has aged and as we have aged over the 10 years since we made this piece my relationship to it as a designer has been in a constant state of flux. Each new production allows me to reify my understanding of light's role in a new time and an ever-changing America and it's relationship to the spirit of Rauschenberg's creative process.
I have always been committed to allowing design and equipment choices to breathe with the piece, and each new venue has a palpable affect on the visual relationships and relationships to time. Each new architecture forces us to re-imagine how the scenic elements function, practically and metaphorically, and thus the use of light is required to change according to those re-imaginings.
Furthermore, each venue brings a new set of equipment choices (and challenges). In terms of equipment, and though the toolbox is reasonably close in this revival, there are many changes in equipment we will use. Gone are the 5k Fresnels from the BAM production, they will be replaced with 2kw Arri Studio Baby Fresnels and we will welcome some new technology from DTW's house inventory that did not exist when the production was initially created. ETC Selador cyc fixtures will replace the Far Cyc fixtures we have previously used. We will use Vari-Lite VL-T1000 fixtures to replace the followspots, and will use ETC PARNel's with Wybron Coloram II scrollers as backlight, replacing the trusty old Par64 fixtures we have always used. The console will be an ETC EOS. I am happy to announce that our antique 14" Beam Projectors will co-exist with this new technology wonderfully.
>The Equipment List for this version is as follows:
ETC EOS Console
288 ETC Sensor Dimmers Multi-plexed
24 ETC Source 4 26deg @ 575w
138 ETC Source 4 36deg @ 575w
28 ETC Source 4 50deg @ 575w
30 ETC Source 4 Zoom 25°-50° @ 575w
24 ETC Source 4 PAR WFL @ 575w
8 ETC Source 4 PAR MFL @ 575w
23 ETC Source 4 PARNel @ 575w
8 ETC Selador LED fixtures @ 3W
3 6'6" Altman MR16 Strip 3 Cir. @ 750w
1 Altman Mini-10 @ 1kw
9 4' 2-Lamp Fluorescent Shoplight @ 40w
16 14" Beam Projector @ 750w
7 7.5" Arri Studio Baby Fresnel @ 2kw
6 Vari-Lite VL-T1000 @ 1kw
31 Wybron Coloram II 7.5" @ 24w
Related article:
Darron L. West On The Sound For bobrauschenbergamerica