The Music Man returns with Martin Professional
- Details
In February, a new production of musical starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster opened at the Winter Garden Theatre. Director Jerry Zaks worked with scenic and costume designer Santo Loquasto and award-winning lighting designer Brian MacDevitt to strike a balance that simultaneously felt modern while retaining the old-fashioned quality of the original production.
At the recommendation of associate lighting designer Nick Solyom and lighting programmer David Arch, MacDevitt selected an array of Martin MAC fixtures for their brightness, colour temperature, rich feature set and ease-of-use.
“I’m old school; I grew up on incandescent lighting and I want the actors and sets in my shows to appear natural,” says MacDevitt. “In the past decade, I’ve struggled to find my palette as the entire industry moved to LED fixtures. For a while it was really hard to pull off realistic looking sunlight or interior lighting. When I first discovered the Martin MAC Encore WRM, it felt like I had finally found a new fixture that reminded me of incandescent lighting. And the new MAC Ultra fixtures do an excellent job of sunlight.”
MacDevitt’s lighting team deployed a full array of Martin fixtures to fill various roles in the lighting design. The team utilised Martin MAC Ultra Performance fixtures hung from balcony rails to illuminate Santo Loquasto’s scenery. The MAC Ultra Performance helped MacDevitt achieve the natural-looking sunlight he was aiming for, and its low operating noise enabled them to deploy the fixtures very close to the audience without disturbing their listening experience.
MacDevitt also selected MAC Ultra Wash fixtures to backlight the performers. For the performers’ key light, MacDevitt chose MAC Encore WRM fixtures for their authentic incandescent appearance.
“In my experience, these Martin fixtures are the best I can get for natural-looking light,” says MacDevitt. “Between the Ultras and the Encores, I’ve found the incandescent palette that I’ve been missing for years. I’m really proud of this lighting design, and my team for pulling it off. The producers are really happy with how it came out.”
For area lights, the team deployed MAC Viper Performance fixtures
