Chauvet gives texture to ONCE experience
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Critical to creating this captivating imagery was a richly coloured and subtly textured lighting design by Cory Pattak that featured Chauvet Professional Ovation E-910FC and Rogue R2 Wash fixtures from the theatre’s house rig. The New York City-based designer drew on the output and colour rendering capabilities of these fixtures to raise the profile of lighting over what it was in the original production of ONCE, which is set in a Dublin pub and tells the tale of an unrequited love involving two musicians.
“Trey Compton, the director, and I had long conversations about the role lighting would play in this,” said Pattak. “In the show’s original lighting design, for which Natasha Katz won a well-deserved Tony Award (one of eight earned by ONCE), the lighting was often very subtle. Aside from some colour in the background and scenery, the scenes generally lived in a warm or cool white world and the cueing was not overly noticeable, except when it wanted to be.”
The Broadway set also had a fairly realistic looking bar, quite a contrast from the metaphorical scene on the Engeman stage, which together with Pattak’s lighting, expanded the sensory side of the show with new visuals.
“Our set, designed by Nate Bertone, was much more impressionistic than the original version,” said Pattak. “Our Irish pub is located in a cut-out section of rock. Above that rock, the green grassy hills of Ireland were visible. Since the set was less realistic than the one in the original Broadway show, I felt like we could push the lighting to a wider, more varied place and give it a stronger role.”
(Jim Evans)
