An Elegant, Beautiful Light On War Paint

In a time when men ruled the business world and only prostitutes and performers wore makeup, two female immigrants, born to poverty, raised themselves up to become iconoclastic powerhouses who defined 20th-century beauty and revolutionized how the world saw women. War Paint, written by Doug Wright with music by Scott Frankel and lyrics by Michael Korie, enters the world of cosmetic industry icons Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, played by Tony Award-winning theatrical titans Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole. Director Michael Greif assembled a star-studded creative team to help these industry giants shatter glass ceilings on stage first at Goodman Theatre in Chicago and now the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway: set designer David Korins, lighting designer Kenneth Posner, sound designer Brian Ronan, and costume designer Catherine ZuberCheck out Korins' set design.

“This was a very cohesive collaboration,” says Posner. “Michael’s approach to the visual world of these two great women was one of sophisticated beauty. David designed a highly transformable environment that afforded me the opportunity to create the many backgrounds for Cathy Zuber’s costumes to stand out and flourish against.”

Posner’s lighting design for War Paint was inspired by fashion photography of the time, in particular that of Erwin Blumenfeld, “who captured women with elegance and beauty,” says the designer. “It is this glamorous world that I wanted to recreate on stage.”

Since the musical spans almost 30 years, there are lots of moving parts and scenic pieces that limited the space for a complex lighting rig. Instead, the lighting designer went for simple design that can still “give the environment as many qualities and personalities as possible,” he says. Despite its simplicity, Posner still achieves a polished look that complements the high fashion. The set features a lot of built-in lighting, including the bottle wall that features custom LED tape and dimmers provided by City Theatrical. Gary Fails, president of City Theatrical, worked with Posner’s lighting associate Paul Toben and production electrician Mike Brown as well as the team at the Goodman Theatre who built the wall, to ensure proper execution of the scenic lighting.

The overhead rig features primarily Martin by Harman MAC Viper Performances. “I chose that fixture for several reasons, one of them being that they are very quiet and another being that they mix the subtle pastels very well,” explains Posner, whose lighting palette complements Zuber’s costume palette. Also in the lighting package from PRG are Martin by Harman MAC Viper Profiles, ETC ColorSource PARs, Source Four PARs, and Source Four units in a range of field angles, as well as Wybron 4'' and 12''  Coloram IT scrolling color changers. Besides a few added fixtures, the plot stayed primarily the same when it moved from the Goodman to the Nederlander. David Arch and Victor Seastone programmed the show on an ETC Eos Ti lighting console.

For more, read the April/May 2017 issue of Live Design.

Stay tuned for more on the sound and costume design!