Frost/Nixon:
Donmar to West End to Broadway with FocusTrack
Lighting tracking
software helps transfer new play to new
venues
4th December 2006
Once reserved only for the largest of musicals,
automated lighting can now be found in theatrical
productions of all scales - as demonstrated by the
acclaimed new play, which recently made use of the
FocusTrack lighting tracking software to facilitate
its move from the Donmar Warehouse to London's West
End.
Directed by Michael Grandage and designed by
Christopher Oram with lighting by Neil Austin, Peter
Morgan's Frost/Nixon re-creates and
dramatises the legendary interview between David
Frost and Richard Nixon, following the President's
resignation after the Watergate scandal. The show
opened at London's Donmar Warehouse in mid-August;
such was the critical acclaim, it was announced
almost immediately that it would transfer to the
Gielgud Theatre in the West End.
This presented a problem for lighting designer Neil
Austin, whose commitments to other shows meant that
he was not fully available for the transfer. With his
design for the show based on precise focussing and
area control using a rig of moving lights - eight
Vari-Lite VL5Bs and four VL5 Arcs, programmed on a
Strand 500-series console by the Donmar's Deputy
Electrician, Daniel Haggerty - he knew that the
moving light focuses would have to be precisely
documented to allow the Donmar's Chief Electrician,
David Plater, to accurately re-create the lighting in
the new theatre.
Having already used FocusTrack once, in transferring
a production of Tamburlaine from the Bristol Old Vic
to the Barbican, Austin turned to the product once
again. "Since the show was programmed on a Strand
500-series console, I knew FocusTrack would be able
to figure out which lights we'd used where without
any more work on our part. Armed with that list we
then photographed each light in each position,
importing those images into FocusTrack to give us a
complete pictorial record of the show," he explains.
Plater and programmer Andi Davis then used that
information to re-focus the rig with the lighting
designer coming in during the preview period to
refine the lighting to suit the larger theatre.
The FocusTrack documentation for the show now looks
set to have a further use, with a Broadway transfer
anticipated for the New Year.
Frost/Nixon is just one of the many shows
currently using FocusTrack to document their
lighting: in London, other productions include
Porgy and Bess (lighting by David Hersey),
Evita (lighting by Paule Constable),
Guys and Dolls (lighting by Howard Harrison)
and Daddy Cool (lighting by Rob Halliday),
while on Broadway FocusTrack can be found on the new
productions of Mary Poppins (lighting by
Howard Harrison) and Les Miserables
(lighting by David Hersey).
Further information about Frost/Nixon can be
found at the Donmar Warehouse website. Further
information about the work of lighting designer
Neil Austin can be found here. Further information about
FocusTrack can be found elsewhere on this
website.