Live Design's fourth annual 31 Days Of Plots features one production per day during the month of December 2021, highlighting a different lighting design, from across theatre, concert tours, corporate events, live for broadcast, and more, as we wind down 2021 and head toward the new year.
On Day 23 of 31 Days of Plots 2021 it's time to get into the holiday spirit with a British Christmas Panto, Red Riding Hood, lit by Tony and Olivier award-winning designer Rick Fisher. "It is in fact like a small new musical," says the LD. "It has gone into the Theatre Royal Stratford East in the East End of London. This is a beautiful neighborhood theatre built in 1884. It has a long history of serving the East End of London which is very much a melting pot and where the 2012 Olympics were staged. So a mix of recent development and older more neglected London."
Fisher describes the style of a Panto (or Pantomime) as "bright and colorful and often with as much flash as one can muster, though that is not my strong suit! It is usually the first theatre (and all too often the only) live theatre experience for many young kids who come in groups from schools to matinees at 10am and 2pm. And they scream and shout at the stage as is traditional with a lot of audience participation and singing and clapping along. It was originally scheduled for 2020 and the show was of course canceled, so the return of Panto was a big thing for the local community and the theatre, Traditionally these shows sell out and supply nearly half of the operating income for the year for the theatre. So they are an essential part of the ecosystem here as The Nutcracker is for many ballet companies in the US," he notes.
"The brilliant theatre staff endlessly installed. As many Fairy lights ( what you would call Christmas tree lights) into the portals as we could manage, and LED tape onto a major set piece for the big finale," explains Fisher. "I have supplemented the theatre’s stock, which ranged from old Strand 743 fresnels and fixed ETC Source Fours and a few zooms, a very few Robert Juliat profiles, Parcans, six Martin Rush LED ‘pars', five Martin TW1’s and five Vari-Lite VL 500’s with a hire from PRG London of eight ETC Lustre series 2 profiles, three Martin Mac Vipers Wash, six PRG Icon stage v3, four Atomic Strobes, 10 Chauvet COLOrado2 Quad zoom LED units, and 12 ETC Source Four Lustre plus."
"As you can see, I still hand draw my plans for smaller projects and while the plot did morph a bit, this is the plan that I worked from…." says Fisher. "Maybe it is refreshing to see something a bit more old school and a smaller scale. Initially due to scenery and a multitude of downstage drops my first lighting pipe was way upstage, but after some forensic work and a bit of de-rigging of a downstage border we did not need, I was able to get something a bit more usual, which was very handy indeed…!"
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