Mary Poppins is the latest, greatest spectacle to hit Broadway. It ambitiously attempts to recapture the magic of the film, including its myriad locations, its animated park sequence and all of the songs that people have come to know and love, along with some new material. And Gavin Lee, who plays artist/chimney sweep Bert, very much performs in the style of Dick Van Dyke. The most impressive aspect of the show is the three-story house set, which actually breaks apart so that when it recedes back into the stage, the attic can descend to stage level and open up to reveal the characters inside. The outside façade can also remain intact for the rooftop sequences. When the audience first saw this trick unveiled at one preview show, they spontaneously applauded. “I think it’s very, very cleverly designed,” says lighting designer Howard Harrison of the house. “It’s not just the size of it, but the unit is a whole. It flows and takes you to a lot of different places.”
Veteran designer Harrison, who has worked for 25 years on shows in the West End of London and on Broadway, had the challenge of lighting a production that is among the most ambitious that the Great White Way has ever seen. He originally worked on the show when it opened in the West End of London in December 2004. After being involved with other productions, he later joined Mary Poppins’ Broadway incarnation, which began running in November 2006. “I was in New York for three months while we were doing it, and it took that long because of the size of it,” he says. “We needed that much time to get it right.” He adds that he had slightly less time to prepare the original British production.
In transitioning from the U.K. to the United States, the show went through numerous changes. “In every aspect: in terms of scenic design, in terms of what I did, in terms of choreography and direction,” explains Harrison. “Fundamentally, the basis of the show is the same, but everyone thought we could improve on things. It was fantastic to be able to get that second chance to do that.”
Mary Poppins on Broadway is loaded with lights. “There are in the region of about 130 moving lights,” says Harrison. “It’s a large moving light rig, but it’s got a small conventional rig. Onstage there are very few conventional lights at all, largely because there’s little real estate” — indeed, little room above the stage — “so that the only way to light it is to put moving lights there. The scenery moves, so the moving lights are not just a luxury for lighting. The overhead electric onstage is 20 feet upstage, which is quite tricky.”
Despite all of the moving lights, the sound designer did not have a problem on his hands. “A big issue on the show was the idea of noise,” stresses Harrison. “A lot of the lights that we used were chosen for the lack of noise they make as much as for what light they produce, and largely we used this new Martin instrument, the MAC 700, which is certainly the quietest moving light that I’ve come across. It is virtually silent. I think people are quite surprised how quiet it is for the amount of moving lights in the building.”
In designing lighting for Mary Poppins, Harrison says his key goals were “to unify everything with a style that was in keeping with what the scenic design does, tying everything together and also give the ability to create some of the magic of Mary Poppins. Virtually every scene is touched by her magic, and therefore, being able to distort and change the look of something as she applies magic to it was crucial.”
An important element in the lighting design was color, and most of the colors for the moving lights were custom ones created for the show. In terms of conventional color, “There is no color or Lee 201 or Lee 161 and those kinds of colors,” says Harrison. “But the majority of the lights, even at the front of house, are VL-1000s, which are color mix. We were able to make our own colors. There are a lot of blues, a lot of pinks, a lot of roses, some greens.”
Despite all of the technology used for Mary Poppins (there are approximately 600 electric cues for the production), Harrison and his collaborators wanted to disguise its presence. “The aim of the show is to make it look quite old-fashioned,” he remarks. “We wanted the show not to look high-tech in any way. It is a period show that takes place at the turn of the last century. We didn’t want any manner of modern technology to be evident, and I think we succeeded with that. The show has quite a period look to it.”
Following the film’s journey that includes a large bank, a large house, a sweet shop and the rooftops of London, Mary Poppins created quite a daunting challenge for all involved. Indeed, the park sequence that transforms from black and white to color for the “Jolly Holiday” number was the toughest piece for Harrison.
“That was the one that took the longest time to get right,” he admits. “It had to be very, very precise and had to very much match what happened scenically. To crack it took a hell of a long time. If you’re dealing with the concept of kids in a wintry, cold park that turns into summer life, you’d think that sounds easy, but in fact it isn’t, and the things you thought would work didn’t work with the costumes and with the set. So that took quite a while.” He adds, “The other big thing was the house itself. You’ve got very few positions to light it from, apart from lighting from the front. To give the house some texture and not make it look very, very flat was quite tough.”
Interestingly enough, the upsidedown tap dance sequence — no joke, the character of Bert dances up the side of the stage and across the top of the stage — was not difficult for Harrison. “That number always came pretty easily, and that’s probably the number in the show that I’m most pleased with,” he reveals. “The number was one of the few times we have a big, empty stage, so actually it was a blessed relief that you were able to do what you wanted to do without being aware of it.”
Ultimately, Mary Poppins delivers audiences an eye-popping spectacle, and it came about because of a strong team effort. “I think this show is a fine example of being a collaboration,” observes Harrison. “You can’t work in isolation, but here you’re working very much with the scenic design, with the costume design and the choreography and the direction. We all got along very well and all respected what everyone else did. With this show you never could go off on your own tangent and do your own thing. You had to be reading from the same book.”
