This is not the first time the talented denizens of Spiegelworld — who hail from countries as far flung as Australia, Ethiopia and Russia — have descended upon Manhattan. The group performed in New York between 2006 and 2008 at the South Street Seaport, then went to Miami Beach, followed by Australia and then a permanent show (called Absinthe) in Las Vegas that has run since early 2011. The company returned to NYC this summer for a limited run through September that will set the stage for a national tour.
Temporary Venue
Spiegelworld’s Empire has been an unorthodox production from the start. First off, the company is not performing in a traditional Broadway venue but in a structure that they built themselves on a lot previously slated for a high-rise development that has been delayed. The temporary venue is approximately 70 feet wide and 25 feet high (which gives the chair stacker just enough room for his act) and holds an audience of 400. “Our normal venue is bigger than this,” lead producer Ross Mollison told PLSN. “But this venue we’ve specifically rented for this site because it fits within about an inch on each end on this piece of land.”
The “mirror tent” (Spiegeltent in Dutch) is constructed of wood, glass, fabric, brass poles and mirrors, and it harkens back to the turn of the 20th century when they were originally used as mobile dance halls that toured around Europe. The tent stage itself is small, and Mollison stated that “many of these acts have never been attempted on a stage that small. I’ve never seen the German wheel on a stage like that. We have a Japanese artist known as the wheel master who’s able to keep it contained to the stage.”
The Empire stage is 9’ 2” in diameter with two leafs that fold up to make it 7’ 6” wide with stage extensions that are 2’ 6” wide and 8’ long. In the down position it is two feet high, while the maximum up position is 6.5 feet high. The stage rotates in either direction at a speed of up to 2.6 revolutions per minute, and it is a scissor lift using two push chains to raise and lower. The stage top is 3/4” plywood finished with a 1/4” piece of Masonite.
A One-Room Theatre
“The design of the show, Empire, is unique, apart from the fact that we use a nine-foot round stage in our show in Las Vegas,” explained Mollison. “This is a totally new stage which revolves and rises, and it’s a lot more stable. We actually built this stage purposely for our needs. The show and the aesthetic are designed specifically for the production, Empire. The building is circular, albeit with wall units that are 8-feet long and straight that create that sort of circle of 20 booths on the outside perimeter, and the audience is sitting in a circle in the same room as the artists. It’s very much a one-room theater, which makes it unique.”
Mollison noted that while other big top acts are considered to be one-room theaters, there is not the same sense of intimacy as can be found here. At its heart, Empire is all about human special effects, not automated ones. “We try to keep it as humanized as possible,” concurred Mollison. “We want people sitting in the back row to make that ocular connection with the artists on stage so they have actually that feeling of meeting the artists. That’s why we don’t have them in a lot of makeup.”
The performers enjoy the compact nature of the venue, even if it provides some challenges on stage, where there is little room for error. “The artists love it because they’re used to performing on a [larger] stage. They never get a response like this normally. They get an enormous reaction from the audience and absolutely love it.”
There is a space near the rear of the venue for the sound mixer and a spot in front for a static guitarist and for performers to pop by on or during vignettes. While Mollison noted that people enjoy seeing performers on the main stage, sometimes a distraction on the secondary stage helps occupy the audience for 30 to 60 seconds while a critical set or prop change is occurring.
Adult Beverages
Another nice distraction is the bar near the entrance. “Which I think is an enormous improvement,” quipped Mollison. “I’ve always said that a Spiegel show is always best enjoyed with a beverage in one hand, and the audience tends to take it up on that. We run the bar ourselves and spend a lot of time on it, with cocktail menus and making sure they’re absolutely the best quality possible.”
The theater itself took three days to build. The show went in for three days followed by three days of tech’ing. “We had planned to do it for about two-and-a-half weeks,” stated Mollison, “but we were constrained by various factors that conspired to make our load-in go in later. The build crew was anywhere between 20 and 40 depending upon the day of the week. I think now we have about four or five people running the show. It’s a very small pool of people who run the show.”
For a small venue, there are many state-of-the-art lights being utilized to enhance the atmosphere. “It’s quite extraordinary what our designers and directors have achieved in terms of making it feel like a far more sophisticated, automated venue,” he added. “But we just do it with traditional rigging and a few odd theater tricks.”
LED Effects
Spiegelworld is utilizing Philips LED Festoon lights that are brand new. They have “never been used before in New York, to my knowledge,” Mollison said. “Each one can be individually programmed to be whatever color we want it to be. That’s why we can get those extraordinary festooning effects in the show. We do some nice effects in there and have the velvet canopy roof to play with. Some of the lighting effects from the little moving LEDs that are on the sides of the stage were unheard of five years ago. Now, cost-effectively, you can have some extraordinary effects coming back up on the swinging top or the branches, which creates a canopy effect that is very pretty.”
Mollison noted that the company was very excited about their LED technology because it has vastly lowered the amperage that they need to operate. While they used to require 2,500 to 3,000 amps, they have been able to cut it back to around 1,500 amps to run the entire Empire site, most of which goes to refrigeration and A/C. “When you don’t need 1,000 amps for your light and sound, it makes a big difference.”
The show uses a 200 kW generator that gives them 400 amps per leg of 3 phase power for 1,200 amps total. (“If everything was on at the same time at maximum, we would be using close to this, but this is never the case.”) The show lights use 100-150 amps per leg, and sound comes through a 100 amp 3-phase transformer. There are two 20-ton HVAC units that each use 50 amp-, 480 volt-, 3-phase power. Each container draws up to 60 amps, while the box office draws up to 40 amps.
There is one final piece to this logistical puzzle. Between the stage, the seats, the bar and the gear, one wonders where there is actually room for the performers off-stage. It turns out that there are two air-conditioned, high-end construction sheds located adjacent to the Spiegeltent, and they hold dressing rooms, a costume workshop and a props workshop.
“Everything fits within the two 40-foot rooms that we have,” revealed Mollison. “It’s only a temporary venue, and everybody puts up with a little bit of hardship. But at the same time they’re getting this fantastic response to their artistry.”
Spiegelworld’s Empire
Lighting Gear
1 ETC ION console
2 20-fader wings
48 2.4kW dimmers
14 Martin MAC 301 Wash LED fixtures
12 Vari*Lite VL3500 Spots
Philips LED Festoons
24 Par-16 Birdies
10 ETC Source Fours (50°)
16 ETC Source Fours (26°)
