Justin Townsend’s 2020 Tony Award nominations for Jagged Little Pill and Moulin Rouge! The Musical, both for Best Lighting Design of a Musical, were "an amazing reminder of being a part of a community during such a complex time when it can feel so lonely or separate,” notes the designer. "I'm really honored to be recognized and also really feeling connected to something bigger than myself.”
[ Read about the Tony-nominated design for Moulin Rouge here. ]
A rock musical with lyrics by Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill premiered at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA in 2018. Directed by Diane Paulus, the production featured the creative talents of Townsend, scenic designer Riccardo Hernández, video designer Lucy Mackinnon, sound designer Jonathan Deans, and costume designer Emily Rebholz.
"That was exciting an exciting workshop process, watching the creatives start to wrestle with Diablo Cody’s really amazing book, but then also figure out how to make the piece feel both like a rock anthem, huge show and also this really delicate, intimate, cutting piece where the audience can really relate to the family's experiences on stage,” says Townsend.
Hernández is a "master at understanding space and letting the story come from the space,” explains the lighting designer. "We knew from the beginning we wanted a muscular ceiling, almost like an iconic shape of a suburban house, with an angled, sloped truss that mimics a roof of the house and three layers of that.” The solid ceiling of light created an energy above the whole piece.
When the lighting rig was flown out, its absence generated an empty, black void that opened a space for projections. Mackinnon had a series of projectors in the balcony rails in order to cover the large void as well as the moving panels, which were tracked by BlackTrax. "Her work was enough to carve the space in such a way that one extra lumen from me could be too distracting or glaring on the projection services,” remarks Townsend. "In those moments, I lit with a single spotlight.”
Townsend lined the moving panels with pixel tape that could trace the contours or create movement while the objects were in motion. "I could have a line of light grow across several pieces, that would all arrive just as the scenery did,” he says, "and so it created a feeling that the light was moving and a part of the scenery. Everything felt very active, nimble, and finessed.”
The LD also lined the deck with ribbons of Chroma-Q Color Force II LED strip lights, controlled in three-inch segments, for precise uplighting to produce a very theatrical angle that culled out the chorus "and allowed them to exist in the same scene as characters who are lit by some beautiful spotlights, which helps signify their separation.”
Townsend used color to shape and identify the world around the characters. "We enter into a world that has the cold, sharp, deep blues and cyan hues which then explode into fiery tones around Mary Jane. Coming back to those cooler, icier tones helps shape their world,” he explains. With a minimalist set design, lighting color denoted location such as yellow for school. Meanwhile, besides MJ’s fiery introduction, Townsend withheld the color red until "You Oughta Know” in Act II when Jo, flanked by the company, shouts at the audience under the fervent energy of the crimson lighting. "Since we've held it all evening, I'm hoping it gives this moment a really exclusive and surprising quality.” At the end of the story, deep colors of rich, enveloping warmth heightened the sense of acknowledgement and togetherness between the characters.
Jagged Little Pill featured the first all-LED lighting rig Townsend has ever designed. The lineup included Martin MAC Encores and MAC Quantum Profiles. "It's such a thrilling rig because there's a lot of power, a lot of saturation in the color when I need it, and a lot of delicacy because of the MAC Encore,” he raves.
"We also worked really closely with Robe to do their long throw spotlight and develop it so that I had four spotlights because of all the video projection and the four family members that each needed their own spotlight,” explains Townsend. "Because it was such a long throw and I needed headshots that lit only the head, Robe made a huge effort, working throughout technical rehearsals and into the night, to reduce the iris size and get tighter shots from the followspots.” Justin Freeman, the production electrician, developed a system to use the lightboard to control the followspots' color and intensity with key precision.
An ETC Nomad Puck was mounted onto each spotlight. "The spotlight operators are actually viewing the same cue stack that the lightboard operators are seeing. They're not sitting in front of cue sheets but actually using a computer software,” says Townsend. “Each spotlight becomes their own user hooked into the same programming threads. It was amazing. When we made adjustments, it immediately showed up in the feed and we could track it into the show.”
Lighting was programmed and controlled on an ETC Eos Ti console by Brad Gray. "Since there were so many control channels in the board,” notes the lighting designer, "ETC was able to unlock the console and work with us to support an extra amount of control parameters beyond what has been tested before.”
PRG supplied the equipment. "I was very thankful to work with Darren DeVerna to make this package happen and make this production so powerful and exciting in terms of just the equipment that we have in the room,” concludes Townsend. "It was really exciting to see Robe, ETC, PRG, and everyone on the production team step up to help make this production the best it possibly could be.”