SOUTHLAKE, TX – The congregation of Gateway Church got an unexpected Christmas bonus this year. Their new 206,000-square-foot, 4,000-capacity church, which replaced a 60,000-square-foot, 1,600-seat facility, wasn't expected to open until January 2011. Instead, the doors opened a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Gateway Church, which also has Dallas/Fort Worth-area churches in North Richland Hills and Frisco, was able to stage a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol at its newest location in Southlake. That production was directed by aerial specialists ZFX Flying Effects, with Stage Technologies Las Vegas also playing a key role.
For A Christmas Carol, Stage Technologies supplied 12 BT Lite packaged hoists and an Illusionist console, which controlled the over-stage battens along with the projectors and projection screens provided by ProSound. The installation also included motorized tracks for the house curtain and theatrical soft goods.
ZFX also worked with Stage Technologies gear on The Gift of Christmas, a holiday production at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, TX that featured special effects, a thousand voices and flying angels.
Beyond the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, in the Memphis suburb of Cordova, TN, Bellevue Baptist Church staged The Singing Christmas Tree. As with Prestonwood Baptist's The Gift of Christmas, the production used 3D rigs with eChameleon programming software and an AU:tour system to help performers – and a Santa's sleigh at Bellevue Baptist – defy gravity.
For more information, please visit www.stagetech.com and www.zfxflying.com.
