Lighting designer Hugh Vanstone uses what he describes as a conventional lighting setup for the Broadway production of Mary Stuart, but the results were powerful nonetheless and garnered him one of the show’s seven Tony nominations this year. “I’m very fond of the production, because it doesn’t really add anything it doesn’t need to,” Vanstone says…One of the final scenes in the play relies heavily on powerful sidelight to generate its dark atmosphere…But the lighting designer feels there was nothing particularly fancy about his choices, including ETC Source Fours and PAR 64s. He also employed a small handful of VL5Bs and six Wybron CXI scrollers. The console that has stayed with the production from London to New York is the Strand 520. The production fits within 200 channels. “Equipment-wise it’s very conventional,” he remarks. “Sometimes good things come from simple stuff.”
—Bryan Reesman, “Inside Theatre,” PLSN, July 2009
