Pomona College’s Seaver Theatre
USA - Pomona College’s Seaver Theatre is tucked away near the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains outside LA. The school’s leafy campus is reminiscent of a New England Ivy League institution, with academic standards to match having been ranked among the top 10 colleges by Forbes and US News & World Report.
The college holds an attraction for visiting designers in the form of a lighting system that’s been enhanced with greater colour-mixing and zooming capabilities thanks to the addition of 60 COLORado 2-Quad Zoom Tour fixtures and 14 Ovation B-2805FC cyc lights from Chauvet Professional.
“Excitement and joy have been the main reactions to these lights by the designers who’ve used them,” said Janelle Asti, the master electrician and sound engineer of the school’s Department of Theatre and Dance. “The designers who have come in and used our new fixtures have been blown away. The zoom capabilities alone have been overwhelmingly impressive. The new fixtures have helped with load-ins too, since we no longer have to add a conventional par to the LED wash units.”
Pomona is utilising the COLORado fixtures at The Allen, its Black Box, as well as at its main Seaver Theatre stage. The Ovation units are being used in the main stage at Seaver Theatre only.
“We use the COLORados and the Ovations for every type of performance we have in our theatres, which includes straight plays, musicals and dance,” said Asti. “The COLORados work very well as stage wash pars, but we also use them to wash sets. The Ovations serve as cyc and ground row lights in our main theatre. They replaced other cyc and ground row fixtures that did not work nearly as well.”
The versatility of the new fixtures is especially appreciated, given the diverse range of productions done by the Pomona Theatre and Dance Department. For example, a recent sampling of shows includes Cabaret, The Engine of our Ruin (a comedy), Marisol, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Forward Rebound, and a dance concert. Thanks to their enhanced colour mixing capabilities, the new Ovation and COLORado fixtures are enriching performances of all types.
(Jim Evans)

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