CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, IL – Although DesignLab Chicago has supported the Illinois High School Theatre Festival as an active participant, exhibitor and Tech Olympics sponsor for over 20 years, Larry Schoeneman, DesignLab's president, decided to boost the support up a notch this year. "Most years, each participating vendor just teaches one class," Schoeneman said. "This year we thought that we'd step up to the plate and show the kids technologies that they might not get to see otherwise and to teach them how to use equipment that they might otherwise not know about."
Close to 2,500 students from 155 schools attended the event, and on their behalf, DesignLab set up a fully-equipped light lab with Master Classes taught throughout the festival weekend. "It's always satisfying to be surrounded by thousands of kids who are excited about putting shows up and doing theatre," Schoeneman noted.
The Lab was 22 feet square and 14 feet tall, with integrated projection screens and a lighting rig with conventional, automated and LED fixtures, dimming, an ETC Congo Jr. console for control and an LCD projector.
Classes covered Wireless DMX, theatrical draperies, large-format printed images, power distribution, Ion console training and automated lighting fixture programming concepts. Several manufacturers provided Master Class teachers including Britten Banner, City Theatrical, Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC), I. Weiss and Lex Products.
"The DesignLab Light Lab was an excellent addition to the festival and provided our students and sponsors a terrific opportunity for hands-on training with some of today's most cutting edge technology," said Karen Hall, the festival's executive director, who is also a theatre instructor at Maine East High School.
For more information, please visit www.designlabchicago.com.
