American Idiot, the rock album by Green Day, has become a rock opera with a recent run at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. LD Kevin Adams used an ETC Eos lighting control system for the production.
In American Idiot, the production incorporates both theatrical and concert-style lighting elements in a high-energy format. Adams used Eos on other shows this year, including the Broadway transfer of Next to Normal. He thought it would be a good fit for American Idiot as well.
"I wanted a user-friendly board that could program both moving lights and conventionals, and could allow for a single programmer instead of two," Adams said. "I wanted a console that would be easy to work from if this show transferred to another theater.
"I love the ease and familiarity of Eos, and enjoy having an intuitive board that is not overly complicated to use both live and in blind. For me, it's a low-stress board to work on," Adams added.
American Idiot's rig consisted of 300 conventional fixtures, including dozens of ETC Source Four and Source Four PAR fixtures, 32 scrollers, 20 moving lights, 40 LEDs and 10 strobe lights.
"Lighting Programmer Victor Seastone and I easily pre-programmed the entire show – even the curtain call – in about four days," said Adams. "There are about 500 cues.
"American Idiot director Michael Mayer and I wanted to take the opposite path of our work together in Spring Awakening, which was carefully precise and deliberately minimal," Adams added. "We wanted to embrace maximalism with American Idiot. We also wanted to make a rock musical that had the impact of a rock show, but used a vocabulary that was unique and theatrical, and not similar to the kind of rock show that one would have expected with a Green Day concert."
Adams' approach bombarded the audience with lighting and multimedia effects. "There are many times when the 40-foot-tall set and cast of 25 are brightly illuminated with white light, while several dozen strobe lights and huge moving projections are coming at the audience all at once. The effect is kaleidoscopic, and the big pictures are so busy at times that it's quite difficult to figure out what to focus on the first time one views it," said Adams.
American Idiot ran through Nov. 15 at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Assistant lighting designers for the show were Stephanie Buchner and Barbara Samuels, Christine Cochrane was lighting programmer and Aaron Sporer served as a studio assistant lighting designer.
