The National Theatre Warsaw stages nearly 500 shows a year across all its stages (photo: Krystof Bielinski)
Poland - Teatr Narodowy (National Theatre) in Warsaw has invested in 40 Robe DL7S Profile moving lights which are part of a lighting upgrade to replace over 100 halogens and gel-scrollers in their rig with new LED light sources, a graduated process taking place across all three of the theatre’s performance spaces.
In addition to modernising their house lighting systems - including some previous moving lights that had been in place for nearly 20 years - they were essentially looking for quieter fixtures, stated head of lighting, Zbigniew Szulim.
They considered all the options, and apart from the silent running of the DL7S, also liked the colour rendering and the smoothness of its dimming. They also wanted a luminaire that could replicate the effect of halogen lamps.
The National Theatre Warsaw, one of five in Poland, each associated with a major city, stages nearly 500 shows a year across all its stages - Bogusławski Hall (Big Hall), the stage at Wierzbowa (Small Hall) and the Studio Stage - a mix of own produced shows and those received from other companies.
The capacities of the Small Hall and the Studio are 120 and 100 respectively, and in these rooms, the audience is sitting very close to the lights, so having less ambient noise coming from the fixtures is a real bonus for those watching.
The theatre’s current building in Teatralny Square was reconstructed after a major fire in 1986 - the fifth in the theatre’s history - and it reopened in its current format 11 years later in 1996.
This is when Zbigniew Szulim joined the team. He works with a lighting crew of 10 across all of the stages. They have had some Robe in the building prior to this latest acquisition - six DL4S Profiles and 18 x MMX Blades - on the large Bogusławski Hall stage and in the Studio. As with these, the DL7S Profiles’s were delivered by Robe’s Polish distributor, Prolight.
(Jim Evans)

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