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Bringing Life In the Heights Onto the Stage

Bringing Life In the Heights Onto the Stage

As Broadway has become littered with revivals or shows inspired by movies or tied into famous franchises, it’s refreshing when an original work comes along to stir things up. One such production is the new off-Broadway musical In the Heights, a production certainly worthy of the Great White Way. With lyrics written and music composed by star Lin-Manuel Miranda, the bilingual In the Heights chronicles the lives of residents in a Latin neighborhood in Washington Heights, their interweaving stories, how they keep their heritage alive while adapting to a different culture and their pursuit of the American Dream. The musical features dynamic staging, a clear and vibrant sound mix full of Latin sounds, show tunes and hip-hop, and lively, inspired performances from the cast, particularly Miranda as grocery store owner Usnavi and Olga Merediz as Abuela Claudia, the matriarch of the neighborhood.

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The Wizard of Applause

Robert Wertheimer puts his theatre background on ice

At an age when most of us are still playing with bugs, a different sort of bug bit Robert Wertheimer — the lighting bug. Ever since, the owner of Spectacle Lighting Design (www.spectaclelighting. com) has been fascinated by the world the lighting. In this month’s PLSN Interview, Wertheimer explains how he ended up designing for Hockeytown, the art and danger of designing on ice, and why it’s important that your client has an excellent experience. 

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Lighting a Symphony – And Then Some

In the last few months I received two offers to light a symphony. I thought to myself, “How hard can this be? Set a pretty look for each segment and key light a couple of solos. Simple, right?” Now add some flamenco dancers, jugglers, acrobats, assorted guest vocalists and 100 choir members. What I ended up with is a variety show, featuring the symphony.

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Look Solutions Cryo-Fog

Look Solutions’ newest fog machine, the Cryo-Fog, is a compact, low-lying fog production machine. It’s compact enough to fit in the “overhead bin;” just be careful when you open that bin, because this baby is 28 kilograms without the fog fluid. (For those of us who don’t do metric, that’s just under 62 pounds.) But don’t let its size fool you; the Cryo-Fog machine pumps out enough fog to compete with the more standard-sized (read, larger) fog machines of its type. I recently had the chance to get upclose and personal with the Cryo-Fog machine when Tom Gittens at Advanced Entertainment Services, in Las Vegas, Nev., showed me around the device.

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AARP Brings Vision to Their Annual Event

Event Producers Sets the Stage

The schedule looks something like this: Get in to town on Sunday, maybe Friday or Saturday if you are lucky. Walk through Hall D of the Anaheim Convention Center late Sunday night, go over some points, make sure that you have all of the gear and prep yourself for a long week. This 221,284 square foot convention hall needs to be turned into an 11,000 seat theatre by 8:30 a.m. Thursday for the opening ceremonies for AARP’s National Event, “Life at 50+: Lights, Camera, Anaheim,” a gala-event with performances by Bill Cosby, Jose Feliciano and Elton John; along with appearances by Maya Angelou, Geena Davis and Dan Rather, among others. 

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The Greatest Band (Lighting) on Earth

Tenacious D has been described as “this wild lead singer with pipes of platinum” and “the heavy-set bald fellow churning out riffs of pure profundity.” Of course, it was Jack Black and Kyle Gass, the two founders of the band, who came up with that description. You would expect nothing less from the self-proclaimed “Greatest Band on Earth,” the same duo who said their show “couldn’t be explained but had to be experienced live and in person.”

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Burning the bulb at both ends?

I’m on a show site in Palm Springs right now.

I’m getting married in a little more than a week.

The producer wants to know why (with my meager budget) I don’t have more lights for the cyc.

The band wants to use the CD player so that they don’t have to learn the music for my first dance with my (soon-to-be) wife.

The video guys want to know why I have so many lights on the cyc.

And my dad (for some reason) thinks all of this is happening a week early.
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Bloody Pirates

Hello to all, picking up where we left last week. I’ve spent sometime watching live shows, whether it is in front of my eye, TiVo, television or DVD player. I recall seeing Primus, Galactic, Muse, and Nine Inch nails very visually oriented shows.

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