Many off-Broadway and Broadway productions are becoming increasingly ambitious in terms of scope and technical demands. The latest example is Catch Me if You Can, a musical inspired by the Steven Spielberg film about Frank Abagnale, Jr. Abagnale is the con artist of multiple disguises who managed to elude the FBI for years and live a full life – or perhaps more appropriately, many full lives – based upon his ability to forge checks and trick his way into people's confidence.
Bringing a big budget Hollywood movie situated in different states and countries to the stage was daunting, and LED video played a key role in making that work. That's where the Senovva Group came in. For years, the veteran audio-visual staging company has provided top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art audio, video and lighting gear and technical and production management expertise to corporate and entertainment clients. You've seen their stamp on the Oscar, Emmy and Nickelodeon awards shows, among others.
Big Screen on the Theatre Stage
For Catch Me If You Can, which ran at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Seattle between July 23 and August 16, 2009, the company provided an impressive amount of LED panels, many of which flew on- and offstage as they helped create numerous environments without needing a massive number of set changes. According to Senovva principal partners Frank McFinn and Kevin Harvey, Catch Me… employed one of the largest LED walls that has been seen in a theatrical set and one of the highest resolution displays that has ever been on a set.
"This show was designed by David Rockwell, who is an architect by trade and a set designer by passion," says Arianna Knapp, VP of Senovva's theatrical division. "He's used LED all over his architecture, and he was the set designer on the Oscars, which is how Frank and therefore Senovva got connected with them because we supply all the LED walls and screens [used] for the Oscars. So when David saw what Senovva was doing with the Oscar technology, he thought that he could make scene design work with LED."
In this production, Rockwell employed two LED walls, one downstage and one upstage, to create different environments. The concept of the show was to treat the film's subject matter in a new format – as Frank Abagnale's 1960s television variety show. "Basically it's Frank telling his life story – or the story between his parents' divorce and his arrests – as big show numbers and various other things are happening," expounds Knapp. "The scenes don't have to be wholly realistic like they are in a film, and they're also not guys and dolls coming in on wings and flies because it's this television studio feeling."
15,000 Pounds, 4 Feet Per Second
Knapp says that LED turned out to be the perfect solution for David because he evoked a 1960s vibe and also created the illusion of giant white marquee light bulbs spelling out signs and other things. One of Knapp's favorite moments in the show was a scene that offered "a takeoff on the 1960s go-go dancers," she recalls, "where you have these flight attendants dancing on stage; then there's an image of one on the back LED wall, and then it repeats and repeats and repeats until you feel like you have this stacked, Hollywood Squares go-go dancers upstage. That was all created through the I-10 LED wall that we had upstage. We had the I-6 downstage because it was that much closer to the audience, but the I-6 wall flew in and out, depending upon where they wanted the action to take place or if they wanted the band to be seen."
The downstage wall was comprised of 435 panels of Barco iLite 6 XP (a 6mm LED), while the upstage wall was made up of 416 panels of Barco iLite 10 mm LED panels. "The downstage wall flew at 4 feet per second in and out, and the motion control on that was done by ShowMotion," states McFinn. "Let me tell you something, seeing 435 panels at 15,000 pounds screaming down to the stage floor was a little exciting for me. And seeing it stop within a half an inch of hitting the ground was pretty amazing." He also says that there were black flats on the downstage walls that would also move in and out to frame the visual images.
"You almost never saw a full wall," adds Harvey. "It was always very specific about what you were designed to look at.
"David called that ‘the aperture' because he would close in to different portions or locations and different geometric shapes of what the audience was seeing on the LED wall," clarifies Knapp. "It became more and more versatile based upon how much of the palette he was using when."
Sometimes Scenery, Sometimes Light
The majority of Catch Me If You Can utilized the full width of the proscenium and the first two thirds of the stage, with the section farthest upstage operating as a giant bandstand. "Going off the theory that it is the Frank Abagnale Jr. show, his band was live on stage and costumed," explains Knapp. "They were seen for 80 percent of the show, and that bandstand also moved downstage a couple of times at different points to support it. Because of the concept that [Tony Award winning director] Jack O'Brien and David came up with, you were usually looking at the full width of the proscenium, and the whole thing was lit."
She adds that the LED screens were providing two or three different elements at different times. "Sometimes it was a huge color wash, so it was complementing the lighting design [by Tony Award winner Kenneth Posner] because color was bouncing off it," says Knapp. "Sometimes it was literally scenery, [such as] a forced perspective of file cabinets going upstage for the office of the FBI agents. There was a number late in the second act that was done almost like a Lawrence Welk number, and the characters turned to the audience to have a sing-along and follow the bouncing ball as it did the lyrics of the song, and that was all done on the LED wall like a giant TV screen."
Catch Me If You Can will hopefully be Broadway bound in the near future. This thought does beg the question: Given that so much technology in many shows can distract from the storytelling, how effective was the LED technology used and integrated here? "In Catch Me If You Can, I think it was very successful because it doesn't try to pretend to be anything else," responds Knapp. "Nobody was ever pretending that it was a drop flying in. Nobody was ever pretending that it was anything that it's not. I applaud David Rockwell for that, because once we took the leap and committed to the sheer quantity of technology that was going into the show, Senovva was thrilled to see how David was able to make that valuable."
