P.L. Travers' beloved story and classic Walt Disney film, Mary Poppins, is currently playing at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre with lighting design by Howard Harrison. A transfer from London’s West End, the Broadway show opened in November 2006 with a lighting rig that includes Martin MAC 700 Profiles and Atomic strobes along with a variety of other automated luminaires, LEDs, and conventionals. Lighting supply is by Hudson Sound & Light of Yonkers, NY.
Associate lighting designer is Daniel Walker with Kristina Kloss as assistant lighting designer and Rob Halliday programming the lighting. “Generally, we are very pleased with the decision to use the MAC 700’s,” Walker says. “Especially when we put them in ‘studio mode,’ which makes them much quieter.”
Halliday, who has worked on both the London and Broadway productions, commented, “The previous version of the show, in London, used a different automated spot luminaire. We liked the units, but ideally we wanted a unit that offered color mixing rather than a fixed color wheel because the luminaire didn't fade from color to color very elegantly and the nature of the show is that a lot of moments benefit from a color dissolve. We never knew in advance which colors we'd be going between and the MAC 700 solved that problem. The other bonuses it gave us were the animation wheel, which turned out to be quite useful in a couple of scenes, and the low noise ‘studio mode,’ which allowed us to satisfy the requirements from the director that the rig be as quiet as possible.”
The MAC 700s are located at various locations: FOH truss positions, proscenium booms, on-stage overhead electrics, SL & SR shins and side-stage ladders. “The lights have held up pretty well with very few reliability problems,” Rob says. “They are accurate, responsive and well behaved. When not much goes wrong, there's nothing much to say!”
Moving light technician Andy Catron continues, “I think the MAC 700s have been a very solid light for this show. We got all of our units brand new from the factory, so I would expect that they would be pretty solid. I find that the MAC 700 is very user friendly in the respect that the gobo module and color module are easy to replace, should the need arise.”
Howard Harrison
Associate Lighting Designer:
Daniel Walker
Assistant Lighting Designer:
Kristina Kloss
Lighting Board Programmer:
Rob Halliday
Production Electrician:
James Maloney
Lighting Console Operator:
Kevin Barry
Key Spot Operator:
Joseph P. Garvey
Automated Lighting Technician:
Andy Catron
Pyro Operator:
Kevin Strohmeyer
Assistant Electricians:
Gregory Dunkin, Joseph Jay Lynch, Carlos Martinez, Al Manganaro
Lighting:
7 x DHA 8xlamp Digital Light Curtain 6'4" 12v 240W Par56 VNSP 1cir
24 x Vari-Lite VL 2000 Wash
45 x Martin MAC 700 Profile
62 x Vari-Lite VL 1000 TS Spot
9 x Vari-Lite VL 3000Q Spot
4 x Vari-Lite VL 3500Q Spot
38 x Clay Paky CP Color 400 SH/HSR Lamp
1 x HES Techno Beam i
12 x Martin Atomic 3000 Strobe
4 x Lycian 1293 X3KxXenon Followspots
21 x 10° ETC S4
38 x 14° ETC S4
35 x 19° ETC S4
138 x 26° ETC S4
13 x 36° ETC S4
7 x 15°x30° ETC S4 Zoom
8 x PAR 64 NSP
1 x Strand Quartet Fresnel
4 x Toccata EP w/ White Light VSFX cloud wheels
40 x MR16 Birdies 12V
25 x L&E 6' 30LT 3CIR MR16/EYJ 75W (mini-strips)
84 x Pulsar ChromaBatten 200/10° LED Striplight
7 x 6" Fresnel
2 x S4 PAR VNSP
17 x 10" Wybron Coloram II CC for 10°
19 x 7.5" Wybron Coloram II CC for 14°
7 x 7.5" Wybron Coloram II CC for S4 Zoom
107 x 4" Wybron Coloram II CC for 19°
7 x Martin AFx1 Jem Fan
4 x MDG Hazers
5 x Tiny Fogger
4 x DMX-it Tiny Fogger interfaces
5 x Look VIPER foggers
2 x LeMaitre PFIx9D Fogger
2 x LeMaitre LSG MKII Chiller
4 x TPR Fiber Optic Emitter
2 x Lite Pro Illuminator
4 x City Theatrical WDS DMX Receivers
4 x City Theatrical WDS DMX Dimmers
1 x City Theatrical WDS Transmitter
1 x City Theatrical WDS Backpack Dimmer
26 x Wybron Coloram Power Supply
1 x Fleenor Design DMX Relay
6 x ETC Sensor 96 way dimmer racks
5 x Motion Labs 48 way ML Power Distros
1 x FocusTrack moving light tracking software
Control:
1 x Strand 520 Lighting Console MAIN
2 x Strand 550 Lighting Console (1 for remote programming, 1 backup)
8 x Strand SN110 Nodes
1 x Strand wired hand-held remote
1 x Strand PDA remote
3 x Strand xConnect dongles for lighting designer tech table video
Video:
2 x Barco RLM 6+ Performer
Controlled by “Watchout”, triggered via DMX by Rosco Keystroke
1 x Extron IPL TS RS232 Interface
2 x Wybron Eclipse II Dowser for use with video projectors