BWW Blog: Sam Weber - Making it Work: Student Productions and Tech

Well, it's been awhile - and to be quite honest, not a ton of progress has been made since I introduced my current project. As I believe I mentioned, myself and a few other students at my college have for the last two years produced full-fledged productions of musicals in less than 24 hours. Beginning this fall, we are trying to expand our "season", if you will, with another full student production, however this time rehearsed sparsely over the course of two weeks instead of all in one day (with an approx. total rehearsal time of ~40 hours). Our hope is that this will give us a chance to produce larger scale shows, with more complex elements, and larger, more inclusive casts.

As we have begun this process, naturally our first step was to find performance space on campus - naturally this process would be different at every institution, but fortunately for us, our college is super supportive of student work. The only drawback: we don't know if there will be any light hung in the performance space, as they might be taKen Down to clean for the main stage productions this season. Now, this might not seem like a big deal at first - and to some extent it isn't; but for those of you have worked behind the scenes in a production, you know that lighting is infinitely more important than we often let on. Lighting, whether with flashing intelligent lights, or just simple gas lamps, defines a mood and space for whatever story you are telling, almost more so than the set.

While we are still waiting to find out what our tech situation is (and as a low-budget student production, we will take what we can get), our team has been brainstorming possible alternatives should we have no lights; after all, part of the experience of producing a show as a student is to innovate, right? So here are a couple of the ideas we came up with:

Floodlights:

Maybe these aren't the most elegant solution, but floodlights can certainly be effective. In fact, we've used them before when rigging lights is too inconvenient simply because of their ease - they are small, bright, cheap, and easy to set up. We have in past used a series of flood to backlight through doorways (specifically in Spring Awakening as the figures of Moritz and Wendla appear to Melchior during those you've known). Possible issue: too much floodlight will wash out the space and possibly make it look too industrial or harsh. Granted, since we haven't picked a show yet, maybe this vibe will be exactly what we need to go for. Floodlights will let you cheaply and quickly illuminate solid surfaces, like a painted wall to be used like a Cyclorama, or from behind paneled would to fake a gobo-like effect or pattern on the stage floor.

Light Bulbs:

Ok, so this is going to sound super "pinteresting", and believe me, I don't like it anymore than you do. But hanging lights, whether exposed light bulbs or holiday string lights, can create a really cool vibe in any space. Depending on the shape of a bulb, you could be in a cold, factory-like world, or a warm living room. Change the color of the bulb and it could be the retro-gym from West Side Story (like in the Carnegie Hall staged concert from this past year). Is using something as "found object" as old-fashioned light bulbs a bit overdrawn? Probably. But again, depending on the show we end up producing, maybe that's exactly what we need. These lights could even be put inside other things, like bundles of fabric (be careful of Fire Safety!!!), or even plastic bottles or jars. Don't even get me started on the multiple uses of paper lanterns.

Now, both options are not ideal and certainly not super professional looking (especially when done on a budget), but when you are producing a student-production, you kind of have to make do with what you have. A lot of designers like using alternative lighting options especially to develop mood or sense of place. Have another idea or technical solution for students without a ton of resources? Comment below how you might make some theatrical magic on a student budget!

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