Country Teamwork - Stage Directions Magazine

Special Section: Lightingnot current controlled, taking about 2.5 volts to operatethem.”LEDs are also great in cuing devices. From Gam comesthe Go-Lite, which Joe Tawil says is simple and reliable.For the Green room, in the flies, in the orchestra pit—thefour-color devices goes anywhere. “So often in theatrescue lights are 7.5-watt light bulb on a zip cord running120 volts around a theatre and that’s totally illegal,” saysTawil. “And because the light bulb itself is so unreliable,people normally run two of them! When fire marshals seethat …” Go-Lites replace all that with a low-voltage LEDwith four lights: white, red, blue and green. This allows formultiple code possibilities. “The control wire is a six-wiretelephone cable that is economical because they can getit from us or simply go to any Radio Shack and get thelength they need there.”The controller itself weighs less than one ounce andit can be nailed, taped or Velcroed. Multiple ones can beused as a guide on stage for actors and to illuminate darkareas. “It’s simple and it’s legal! That’s why I love it. Thesimple things work best in theatres.”Gobos & Special EffectsInLight Gobos is a glass and custom steel gobo manufacturer,and for many years they’ve been the exclusivelicensee of Beacon products. That Sweden-based companyholds a patent on ultra thin layer gobos and InLightis the only company in the U.S. that can produce the 1.7mm-thick gobo. “It puts all the colored layers of the goboessentially in the same focal point, so it gives you a verycrisp focus,” says InLight’s Rick Hutton. “We make a widerange of gobos for many different applications, includingBroadway.”One that is especially popular is a grayscale black andwhite on that has a dark mirror coating on the backsideand avoids any “ghost” or “halo” image sometimes aproblem in other gobos. Jim Hutchinson, a professor andtheatre lighting department head at Oklahoma State (andblogger behind JimOnLight.com), used these to greataffect in a recent production and “raved about them.”And for those looking for ways to increase the possibilitiesof their digital media servers, there’s Digigobosoffered through InLight. “Available on DVD are 10 loopedroyalty-free video clips on a disk,” Hutton says.“Overall, we feel there are more LED fixtures cominginto play that are suited for theatrical use. Cost is still upthere for many users, but it is coming down,” says BMISupply’s Steve Roudebush. “There are also more movinglight options for those on smaller budgets. Even just ahandful of fixtures can allow a great deal of creativity andflexibility.” Specifically he says the Reveal SW from PrismProjection “is a good example of this—it offers smoothdimming and a unique design that eliminates multi-partshadows found with most LED fixtures. The ETC/Selador48 March 2011 • www.stage-directions.com