A noir gumshoe draws focus in this all-out Broadway valentine.
It seems like old-school Broadway is becoming hip again, from the more traditional first act of Grey Gardens to the loving homage/satire that is The Drowsy Chaperone and now the musical murder mystery Curtains, which co-stars David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk. The escapist Curtains stars Hyde Pierce as Lieutenant Frank Cioffi, a Boston detective assigned to investigate the murder of a play’s leading actress on opening night at the Colonial Theatre. While sequestering the cast and crew indefinitely, he seeks to ferret out the villain, woo the understudy for the lead and help the producers solve the dilemma of how to make their show Robbin’ Hood better. Sometimes Cioffi shows more passion and interest in his love for the girl and for theatre, and the show’s humor derives from his odd choice of priorities.
A show like Curtains is challenging because it presents a play within a play, and there are a variety of moods to light, from the upbeat, outdoor Can Can number that opens the show to the gritty backstage confrontations over the murder to a red-drenched saloon number near the end. “The lights were a bit more colorized,” remarks lighting designer Peter Kaczorowski, whose Broadway credits include Grey Gardens, The Music Man and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? “It’s a progression. I think there was a style step-up in the first half-hour where the production numbers were a little more colorful and bright and had more production value because there was scenery, and then we get backstage for the book scenes.”
He feels that while they were not exactly noir in nature, the backstage scenes are a little grittier and more black-and-white, “something a little mysterious to support the murder mystery part of the play. So finding a way to get back and forth between those two was definitely one of the biggest challenges, along with making sure the audience didn’t miss much, because the plot has a lot of details and a lot of different people deliver those details. Most the time it was pretty much an empty stage backstage. That was another challenge, to make sure we found everybody to let them tell us what they wanted to tell us from a focus point of view.”
One of the show’s most dramatic moments occurs when Hyde Pierce emerges into the Colonial Theatre’s backstage, backlit by a 4K HMI light with fog swirling about him to create that hard-boiled gumshoe vibe that he would comically usurp once he becomes infatuated with the musical more than the murder. Another dramatic moment transpires when Cioffi and the play’s director and understudy are up in the rafters, watching the Boston ensemble practicing a number called “In the Same Boat.” For this sequence, Kaczorowski came up with a clever idea.
“That catwalk is an interesting piece because it forms the wall and the location of the rafters for that very scene,” explains the lighting designer, “but when it’s in its flown-out position, I’ve got lights that are hung on the underside of that piece so that basically it becomes a lighting position when that piece is not being used. That scenic piece takes up a lot of space, and I had to somehow incorporate some of my lights into it, knowing that it only played for one scene and for only two minutes. So for the bulk of the evening my lights are in a rig underneath that piece; then it comes into the floor to play the scene, and I actually turn some of those lights on the bottom up to light the cast members on the upper perches. I use some of the moving lights there to animate what they’re watching down below in rehearsal.”
A couple of Martin MAC 2000 Profiles were used as underlights for the catwalk scene, and there are approximately 60 used in the whole show. In total, Curtains has 528 lights, including 70 moving lights. The predominant lights are ETC Source Fours, either 575 W or 750 W, with dozens of; MAC 2000s (Profile, Performance and Wash); Wybron Coloram II color scrollers also are used. Effects include an MDG Hazer and a couple of Le Maitre LSG low-smoke generators for the dance fantasy sequence.
“Everyone has to have them,” Kaczorowski says of the low-smoke generators. “They are the regular fog machine now. You can cool the contents of the canister and spit it out cooler so it stays lower, or you can warm it a little bit so that when it comes out it rises and makes a bigger atmosphere. You can control your effect a little better. It’s totally programmable. You can do it on the lightboard as opposed to a dry ice machine. It’s much more sophisticated, and visually pretty much the same effect as dry ice.”
In terms of other sequences, the song and numbers for the show Robbin’ Hood required Kaczorowski to come up with different color mixtures to reflect their moods and locations. “The finale was dictated, in a way, by the script,” he says. “First by the description of what the saloon looked like, then after they do the number. Cioffi says, ‘Great number, everything’s fantastic. Who doesn’t love red? ” So the set kind of took off from there. It wasn’t all that way, obviously, but it needed to justify the line at the end of the number.”
“There was a fair amount of saloon, amber, footlighty feeling right when the Can Can girls were right in front of the scrim before the curtain goes up,” continues Kaczorowoski. “The Ford Henderson number was mainly amber and had some lavender to keep the cool costumes alive. The backdrop there was kind of sunsety, and everything had kind of a warm glow to it, so we went with that. I didn’t really turn anything into something it wasn’t.”
Many Broadway shows today are trying to replicate the movie-going experience, but Kaczorowski does not feel that way about this show. “There are a lot of light cues in Curtains, but I tried to give it kind of a yesteryear aesthetic,” he clarifies. “I’m old enough to remember doing shows on road boards, and guys pulling handles. If we’re supposedly doing a show in 1959 at Boston’s Colonial Theatre, not that we need to be completely beholden to how they would have done it, but I didn’t make it overly pyrotechnical. There are automated fixtures in the show, but I tried to not really use them in an obvious, automated way. I didn’t have a lot of things whizzing around. When they moved, they moved in a cinematic way to focus things a little better, to draw the audience in a little more. It wasn’t crazy and circus-like. I did try to give the show a real and somewhat period interpretation.”
Kaczorowski feels that the acting company for Curtains “is really good at what they do. That cast members are special Broadway performers who can carry a show. They don’t need a lot of help, really. And I’m not discounting the amount of support that they got from scenery, lights and costumes. There was a lot, but there was an effort to make that lot look somewhat simple and effortless, if you get what I mean.”
The show is a throwback in a way for Kaczorowski on a more personal level because he worked with many of the cast and crew on a show called Steel Pier a decade ago, including director Scott Ellis, associate choreographer JoAnn Hunter, composer John Kander, and actors Deb Monk and Karen Ziemba. “It was a reunion of sorts really,” he says. “They’re all fantastic people, and I think they’re the front-line Broadway group. For a Broadway cast right now, they’re hard to beat.”
Photo by Joan Marcus.
GEAR
4 ETC Source Four 5 @ 750w
48 ETC Source Four 10 @ 750w
2 ETC Source Four 14 @ 750w
69 ETC Source Four 19 @ 575w
77 ETC Source Four 19 @ 750w
86 ETC Source Four 26 @ 575w
34 ETC Source Four 26 @ 750w
41 ETC Source Four 36 @ 575w
18 ETC Source Four 36 @ 750w
1 ETC Source Four 50
9 ETC Source Four 50 @ 575w
2 ETC Source Four 50 @ 750w
3 ETC Source Four PAR WFL @ 575w
21 ETC Source Four PAR MFL @ 575w
4 ETC Source Four PAR MFL @ 750w
52 ETC Source Four PAR NSP @ 575w
4 ETC Source Four PAR NSP @ 750w
66’0” MR16 3Cir Ministrip EZZ @ 750w
86’0” MR16 3Cir Ministrip EYC @ 750w
68’0” MR16 4Cir Ministrip EYC @ 750w
58’0” MR16 4Cir Ministrip EZZ @ 750w
10 Altman 6” Fresnel @ 750w
2 Altman 8” Fresnel @ 1kw
1 Arri 5K Fresnel @ 5kw
1 Arri Compact 2.5K HMI @ 2500w
3 Old Timey 6” Fresnel @ 500w
1 Old Timey Step Lens
1 Old Timey 3.5×5
4 Narrow Birdie
2 PAR 16 Birdie 100MR16N/M @ 100w
1 Stik Up @ 150w
2 Arri 3” Pepper Fresnel @ 420w
26 Martin MAC 2000 Profile
32 Martin MAC 2000 Performance
12 Martin MAC 2000 Wash
52 Wybron Coloram II 4”
10 Wybron Coloram II 7.5” Leko
2 Wybron Coloram II 10deg
20 Wybron Coloram II 7.5” PAR
212” Mirror ball
2 MDG Atmosphere Hazer
1 Smoke-Pencil Foggers
2 Le Maitre LSG Mark III Low Smoke Generator
2 Bowen Fan
3 Lycian 1293 X3K Followspot
