May Issue - Stage Directions Magazine

Answer Box
By Jason Reberski
All photography by Jason Rebersk
Revisiting Tragedy
How a lighting designer for a
college production created a
dramatic fog effect that didn’t
steal focus.
As both a theatrical design student
and a freelance lighting designer, I’ve
come across my fair share of difficult
situations. The challenge posed in Deborah
Brevoort’s play The Women of Lockerbie, at Lewis
University in Romeoville, Ill., was no exception.
The play takes place seven years after the
crash of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie,
Scotland, and the script mandates that a few,
very plot-specific, atmospheric effects be
created. There was a lot of discussion early on
regarding the subtlety of the fog effects that
would appear throughout much of the show.
As lighting and special effects designer
for the production, I was charged with
developing a versatile system capable of
delivering both subtle and dramatic fog effects onstage.
Since the audience was in very close proximity to the
action taking place on the thrust stage, there was also
some concern of fog drifting into the audience and
pulling focus.
There were many opportunities for the introduction of
fog onstage with this set. However, most of the preliminary
solutions looked great on paper but, in reality, proved to
be far too visible in the intimate atmosphere of the Philip
Lynch Theatre.
The scenic design was done by Harold McCay, who is
the technical director of the theatre. His abstract set was
reminiscent of Scottish hills and the ruins of Greek theatres.
Harold decided to use a type of burlap fabric, which he
painted and textured, for the fascia of the platforms that
composed the set.
I realized that the burlap had a lot of open surface area
and was actually porous enough to allow the movement of
air through it. So I designed and developed a system in which
A scene from the Lewis University production of The Women of Lockerbie
the fog, from a Look Solutions Viper NT DMX fog generator,
was drawn into an accumulator (stuffer) box by a 134 CFM
centrifugal blower. The box acted as a plenum for fog and air,
giving the aerosol time to expand. The blower pressurized
the fog and sent it out through more than 50 feet of 4-
inch ducting. After passing through several manifolds and
subsequent sections of ducting, the fog emerged through
the porous burlap fascia in six different locations on the
set. The use of a quick dissipating fluid ensured that the fog
didn’t drift into the audience or linger for any appreciable
length of time once the cues were over.
The final effect was subtle and diffused. I like to think of the
solution as a “scrim” for fog effects. Most important, perhaps,
is that the thematic and visual elements of the script were
supported by a combination of various technologies. It truly
is “better theatre through science.”
Jason Reberski is a freelance lighting designer based out of
Chicago. He can be contacted at JRLightingDesign@comcast.net.
44 May 2007 • www.stage-directions.com