The GDSspecials division recently designed and built a bespoke lighting solution for the set of The Chichester Festival Theatres Singing in the Rain.
Positioned in the beautiful surroundings of Oaklands Park, Chichester Festival Theatre is one of the UK's flagship theatres, with a dazzling international reputation for producing a wide range of theatrical productions, from musicals and comedies, to classic drama and innovative new writing. Since opening in 1962, Chichester Festival Theatre has established an international reputation as one of the UK's leading regional venues. The Festival Theatre was founded by Leslie Evershed-Martin CBE and its first artistic director was Laurence Olivier.
With 1206 seats, the Festival Theatre was the first modern theatre in this country to have an open 'thrust' stage with the audience seated around it on three sides, allowing it a close involvement with the actors. The emphasis of the theatre's programme is on the summer Festival, which runs from April to September and includes the show Singing in the Rain, which is based on the classic MGM movie.
GDS were commissioned to deliver a bespoke lighting solution for Singing in the Rain. The production team required a waterproof RGB, colour mixing, LED product to be installed into the proscenium arches, pavement cracks, step risers, pavement slabs and the Hollywood stars set into the stage. The product was required to be bright LED, colour changing, controlled by DMX and most importantly fully waterproof.
Nick Read Head of special projects worked closely with Paul Hennessey the Production manager, Tim Mitchell, LD and the set designer Simon Higlett, along with Sam Garner Gibbons the technical manager of the theatre to realise their creative design within the time, cost and technical parameters of the season and it being suitably waterproof for show called Singing in the Rain! The result was custom-built fully controllable waterproof lighting system.
Installed in to the set were seventy three sets of RGB controlled lighting, breaking down to two hundred and fifty meters of fully controllable, IP68 rated, RGB LED flexible strip lighting and fifty metres of white, IP68 rated, strip lighting. The LED's were controlled using custom-built LiteWare CV Control boards over DMX.
Matt Lloyd Managing Director GDS commented: -
“The creation of the GDSspecials division allows us offer a bespoke design and manufacturing service enabling our clients to overcome problems that could not be not solved with off the shelf products. The guys at the Chichester Festival Theatre came to us with a challenging brief but our in-house specialists were able to offer them a solution and manage the project from the design stages to the installation. Working closely with the theatre's production team Nick and the GDSspecials team were able to ensure we delivered a product that was exactly what the show required”.
GDSspecials design, build and manage all aspects of bespoke projects from Theatre, Television, Film, and corporate. The GDSspecials team is formed from industry experts in the art of creating and delivering reliable one offs and short run products. Using 3D CAD and rendering, the project can be formed, evaluated and changed as required before anything is physically built, saving clients time and money. GDS specialises in lighting and control solutions and has seven innovative brands in its product portfolio
For more information visit www.gds.uk.com or call the UK sales team on 0117 3250063.