Shakespeare & Company was running out of space. The theatre company, founded in 1978 with a mission of combining the strengths of classical British and American acting, first secured residency in the turn-of-the-century estate that was home to writer Edith Wharton, then in 2000 expanded to 30 acres with multiple buildings one mile away in Lenox, Mass.
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Some people get themselves stuck in a rut. Erykah Badu is not one of them. Her music bridges multiple genres, she sports an astonishing array of couture and hair styles and she’s not afraid to change the name of her tour or the look of the set two weeks into the tour. The 2008 tour, in support of her most recent album, New Amerykah Part One (4th World War), started off as the New Amerykah tour, but became known as the Vortex Tour to reflect, as Badu reportedly put it, “a swirling cloud of energy that sucks everything into its orbit.”
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On the surface, the latest version of Vectorworks computer-aided design, visualization and rendering software may not look as if it has had a radical upgrade, but when you replace the 3D modeling engine with a new kernel, there’s a good argument for saying so.
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Bandit Lites got its start when founder and chairman Michael Strickland was just 12 years old. In the early years, Strickland would have to “borrow” the lights from a local high school theatre to light the Monkees, the Beach Boys and other bands of the 1960s — hence the name. Today, Strickland’s company has emerged as a global leader in the entertainment lighting industry, with offices in Knoxville, Nashville, San Francisco, the U.K., Hong Kong and Taiwan, and while the company is still called Bandit Lites, Strickland no longer scours local high schools for gear.
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BOSTON — Anolis ArcLine Outdoor Optic LED strips have been installed into Paul Oakenfold’s custom rolling riser DJ platform, which has been used for his opening sets on Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet world tour stadium shows.
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LONDON — Baz Halpin, LD for the current tour for Queen + Paul Rodgers, was looking to create a “good, old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll lighting show,” but with the kind of consistency in color that wasn’t always available with the monster rigs of yesteryear. He opted to include 80 Coemar Infinity Wash XL lights to meet the challenge.
Read More »AGOURA HILLS, CA — A.C.T Lighting announced its intention to roll back pricing on MA Lighting products to match Oct. 2007 levels, attributing the company's decision to an unexpected increase in the value of the U.S. Dollar against the Euro. The company said the new pricing goes into effect immediately, and is good on all orders shipped between now and the end of calendar year 2008.
Read More »SANTA, CLARA, CA — Musson Theatrical, Inc. recently expanded into a new 35,000-square-foot space at its existing facility. “When the business that used to occupy the other half of the building that Musson occupies vacated, we saw a golden opportunity to expand our business and improve service to our customers,” said Bob Downs, president.
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MANCHESTER, U.K. — Lighting designer Tom Kinane used I-Pix BB7 LED wash lights for the first time on the set of the final episode of the Peter Kay talent show spoof, Britain’s Got The Pop Factor … And Possibly A New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly On Ice.
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WALNUT CREEK, CA — Northcreek Church (NCC), now in the third phase of a construction project that started two years ago, needed lighting, video and stage components for the new building being added to the church campus in response to an increase in church attendance, and relied on Michael Garrison Associates (MGA) to do the job.
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I was recently asked to take a look at a new Elation lighting fixture, the LED 36 Tri-Brick. I thought to myself, “Great, yet another LED fixture in the shape of a brick.” But then I turned it on and all I could say was, “Wow.” Elation has once again stepped up and taken the LED fixture to a new level.
Read More »On Feb. 17, 2009, at the stroke of midnight, an amazing era comes to a close, and another one begins. It’s called the DTV (digital television) transition, and as mandated by our good friends at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), every chief engineer at almost every television station in the U.S. is going to throw the big “off” switch on their trusty old analog transmitters. From that point forward, all terrestrial video transmission at “full power” TV stations will be blasting out ones and zeros, as the sun sets on analog broadcasting. (Psst— Hey buddy, wanna buy a 50,000-watt analog transmitter?)
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