Lighting Co
Upstaging
Venue
Various (Tour)
Crew
Production Designer: Jason Sherwood
Lighting Designer & Programmer: Eric Marchwinski
Lighting Director: Tom Wagstaff
Lighting Techs: Ed Duda, Andrew Harvey, Jorge Del Angel
Video Content Creation: Adrian Letechipia
Video Director: Richard Stembridge
Video Co: Upstaging
Video Techs: Steve Falconer, Andrew Meuller, Alan Rubi
Tour Manager: Tracy Metz
Production Manager: Derek Williams
Stage Manager: Richie Gibson
Riggers: Zep Lister
Trucking: Upstaging
Gear
1 grandMA2 Full console
1 grandMA2 Light consoles
42 Claypaky Scenius Profiles
34 GLP Impression X4
20 GLP Impression X4S
18 GLP Impression X4 Bar20’s
12 Solaris Flares
144 TMB Intelligent Marquee System Bulbs
2 MDG Atmosphere TheOne hazers
2 HES F-100 foggers
1 PRG MBox V4 media server
1 Mac mini (Printer Control)
4 Brother laser jet printers
1 Christie Boxer 4K30 laser projector (for content on chandelier)
Designer Insights by Steve Jennings:
Sara Bareilles Amidst The Chaos Tour
Sara Bareilles is out on her Amidst The Chaos Tour, in support of her 6th studio album of the same name. She’s been busy as of late with other projects as well, having composed music and writing lyrics for the Broadway musical Waitress for which she earned a Tony Award a nomination for Best Original Song in 2016, and a Grammy nomination for Best Musical Theatre Album. In April 2018, Bareilles received acclaim for her portrayal of Mary Magdalene in NBC’s adaptation of a classic Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert. We spoke to Lighting Director Tom Wagstaff about the tour, working with Production Designer Jason Sherwood and Lighting Designer & Programmer Eric Marchwinski.
“Prior to the first show, we had about a week of production rehearsals in Nashville. We had a couple of days to ourselves at the start to get the rig hung, and work out some of the technical details of the design. The production design by Jason (Sherwood) centered around a gigantic chandelier composed of hundreds of sheets of paper of all sizes, printed with handwritten lyrics, and sheet music and notes from many of Sara’s songs that rose up in an inverted pyramid like a giant tornado. We had to figure out the best way to hang and transport the rather delicate structure so that it would survive all the load-ins & load-outs and traveling. We eventually worked out a good way of folding and layering the pieces, so that they survived. Another technical challenge to the design was the inclusion of a scenic gag at the end of the show, where dozens and dozens of sheets of paper like those making up the chandelier rained down on the stage from above. Between them, Jason and Eric (the Lighting Designer) came up with a way of mounting laser jet printers up into the mother-grid above the chandelier, and had a program written that would take art-net info from the MA2 desk and trigger the printers to feed however many pages we needed out, into the air. It took a lot of trial and error to work out the correct timing to start the printers running to make the drop happen in the right place (there’s about a 17 second lag between sending the cue, and the first page dropping), and also to work out how many pages to send, so that the cascade ends with the end of the song. It took a while to get right, but I think its a really impressive effect, and a great close to the show. It was also fun explaining to our lighting crew that part of set-up every day was to make sure the printers were full of paper… It’s not everyday that you get to send a lighting tech up into the rig to fix a paper jam!
Jason and Eric had both done quite a bit of pre-production work with Sara, and came into tech with a fairly clear idea of what the set-list was going to be, and it didn’t change much during rehearsals, so what Eric programmed during tech is more-or-less the show we’ve been touring. Only one song has been added to the show since we left rehearsals, though we have had a few special guests show up for the occasional show, where we’ve added a one-off song. Eric left me with a very well organized show, though, so it’s been quite easy to work in these adds. Programming during rehearsals was great, as Eric is so fast on the desk, that I had plenty of time to learn the cuing and practice along with the band. The tricky part was keeping up with everything that he was doing, so that I’d know how to make any changes or adjustments that came up during the course of the run. Again, Eric’s excellent organization came to my rescue, as once I understood how he laid out the show, everything was always in a logical place, and I didn’t have to spend ages hunting through pages of macros and presets to find anything that needed updating.
At the point where we started production rehearsal, there was not going to be any projection on the hanging set piece, and so Eric’s original programming had lighting treatments for the whole show, then the projection was added, we went back and re-built the cues with the media programmed in, but we kept the versions without video too, as we were not sure if we’d be able to get the projector into a suitable position in all of the smaller venues. This way we’d be covered either way. In the end, we’ve not had to go to plan B, but it’s nice to know that it’s there.
This tour has been a great experience for me from start to finish. We have a lovely crew out here that all get along really well, and Sara and the band are a pleasure to work with. Given the range of venues we’ve played on this run- from MSG to the Hollywood Bowl, to theaters like the Fox in Detroit, Ed, Andy and Jorge (from Upstaging) have done a great job with any changes day to day, rolling with the punches! As for the show, it’s a pleasure to run every night. I think Eric’s lighting, Jason’s design are beautiful, and Sara is an amazing performer… a lovely person. I feel very fortunate to be here on this tour, with this team, and I think all of us would be happy to keep this show going as long as they’ll let us!”
