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The Who’s Tommy Tours with PRG Europe
Celebrating the 35th anniversary of the legendary album, The Who’s Tommy has hit the road for a 20-week European tour with a lighting rig supplied by PRG Europe. The original Broadway production has been so well received that it was nominated for six Drama Desk Awards, including one for Outstanding Lighting Design.
After changing their lighting and sound suppliers at the last minute, the producers, Theatrical Management Group (TMG), put the job out to tender across Europe with PRG Europe’s Croydon office winning the contract. Producer Michel Boersma, said: “I chose PRG Europe because I wanted to keep my original design but stay in budget.”
With only two weeks between getting the contract and having to ship to Frankfurt, Alan Thomson, Loz Wilcox and the hardworking team at PRG Europe, along with production electrician Simon Needle, pulled out all the stops to equip the enormous lighting rig.
It was soon realised that radical changes would be necessary to accommodate the huge lighting rig within the turnaround times – just one-and-a-half days, including travelling, between each gig. Simon Needle explained: “With the tight touring schedule in mind, we changed the way we approached the show and decided to use pre-rigged truss which was, again, supplied and then driven over from the UK by PRG Europe.”
Tour producer Michel Boersma was delighted: “PRG Europe was my saviour! Their one to one customer service and great advice went beyond the call of duty. We built a working relationship in a very short period of time, which is something that I have not experienced with other European companies I’ve worked with.”
Lighting designer Charlie Morrison and associate lighting designer, Josh Monroe, wanted to maximize the versatility of the relatively simple set, which consists of only two truss-like portals laden with lights and a large band bridge upstage. With a strong projection element to the show, using both front-of-house PANI projectors and rear-projected slide imagery, also supplied by PRG Europe, a cyclorama was crucial in creating a wide-open look for some of the scenes, especially the rock ‘n’ roll numbers. To contrast with this, a series of red sliders were also specified, which when closed create a confining, oppressive effect for the more intense, intimate scenes.
With the band sitting upstage on the bridge, the main character, Tommy, is often up there with them, so they had to be brought into focus when necessary. To do this, strong silhouettes of the band against the very vivid and often changing cyclorama were developed, along with a ‘split screen’ effect, whereby the top half of the cyclorama, which backs the bridge, has a different look to the lower half. For the ‘concert’ sections of the show there is a fair amount of exposed equipment dotted around the set, including moving lights and four large towers of Pars to create a truly ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ feel.
Charlie Morrison chose an automated rig with lots of Vari*Lites, all from PRG Europe’s extensive stock, because: “They give us great flexibility in being able to section off pieces of the cyclorama as well as the ability to project imagery on to it when needed. There isn’t a lot of depth between the cyclorama and the Vari*Lites, so their zoom optics were instrumental to the kind of coverage we needed. They are also incredibly bright and the colour mixing is top notch, so we were able to get incredibly saturated and vivid colours.”
Michel Boersma added: “PRG Europe did the impossible and I am hugely grateful to them for it.”
21st February 2005
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