Joan of Arc - Into the Fire opened at the Newman Theatre in February and runs until 30 April
USA - Multi award-winning and Tony-nominated lighting designer Justin Townsend finds that he is using Elation Professional lights more and more since his first experience with them in 2013/2014 on the Broadway musical A Night with Janis Joplin. Currently, he is using Elation Satura Profile and Platinum Seven LED-based moving heads on the world premiere of Joan of Arc: Into the Fire, an exciting new Off-Broadway musical penned by David Byrne.
“Elation has stepped up in the last few years and you see Elation gear used more and more in theatre,” Townsend stated. “They have some fantastic products with great features and they make them very quiet as well. In an industry where more is more, the fact that you can afford twice as many lights with the Elation product is exciting. With more fixtures we get more colour and more effects on our productions. It’s a win-win.”
Joan of Arc: Into the Fire plays at the Newman Theatre in New York City, part of the Public Theatre company. The Newman is a well-known space where several of Broadway’s top plays got their start including Hamilton in 2015. An intimate yet long 300-capacity space that stretches deep to the back, Townsend was looking for lighting that could both embrace the intimacy and reach to the furthest recesses of the space.
The Satura Profiles wash the stage and set from a downstage lane, and also do FoH specials and aid with followspot duties. “It has a crisp, clean light and includes framing shutters which I use quite a bit,” he says. “It gives a very sharp light and is also quiet which is important.”
Platinum Seven LED wash lights with their seven-colour multi-chip LED engine work in backline pairs, as well as from a 5 x 5 fixture array over the stage. “They are awesome with big fat colour and have a really good response time,” Townsend said. “They look great in the space as architecture and in terms of brightness they are really good.” The set up included LED screens back and side stage with the designer running pixel-mapped effects across the Platinum Seven’s as well.
Joan of Arc - Into the Fire opened at the Newman Theatre in February and runs until 30 April.
(Jim Evans)

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