The spots are making their debut during the 2018-19 theatre season
USA - The Department of Theatre at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo has added 12 Claypaky Axcor Spot 300 moving LED fixtures to its inventory. The lights serve three theatres in the department’s complex as well as an additional performing space elsewhere on campus. The spots are making their debut during the 2018-19 theatre season.
The Axcor Spot 300s replace ageing moving lights, which are at the end of their lifecycle. “I had been looking for LED-based fixtures capable of projecting patterns and with a varied range of colours,” says Matthew Knewtson, professor of theatre and lighting design. “I found the Axcor Spots in doing online research, and colleagues recommended the Claypaky fixtures as a viable option.”
The Axcor Spot 300s were purchased from BMI Supply in Queensbury, New York. ACT Lighting, Inc. is the exclusive distributor of Claypaky lighting in North America.
Professor Knewtson quickly deployed the fixtures on the fall production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, a musical for which he provided the lighting design. “I used the Axcor Spot 300s to create the effect of a taxi moving thru the streets of Madrid. I also used them for a motion picture effect as well as more mundane uses such as pattern and color wash,” he explains.
Since then the theatre students have used the Axcor Spot 300s for an automated fixture workshop in which each student designs the automated lighting for a song of their choice. Their productions are presented in two live performances for the rest of the theatre and the dance departments.
Francesco Romagnoli, Claypaky Area Manager for North and Latin America, comments: “It’s great to see our new fixtures used for the theatre. The Western Michicigan University’s Theater Department is doing great things with them.”
(Jim Evans)

Latest Issue. . .