In June of this year, our small production company, Out of the Box Productions, was presented with a unique opportunity. In 2004, we had originally produced our show Opera Erotique at the Events Centre, a nightclub in Victoria, B.C., which was lit entirely with conventional instruments. When we talked about remounting the show at the Tranzac Club in Toronto, we decided to conduct a comparative study by lighting the entire production with LED instruments – not just washes, but acting areas as well. Through the generosity of J.F. Canuel, vice president of A.C. Lighting, we were offered a complete LED lighting rig for the show. Whatever I requested was made available to us – including the new Color Block 2. These fixtures, with their RGBA optics, 530 lumens of output and theatrical-grade dimming, made the design challenge seem, at least on paper, possible….We ended up using less than 1/3 the conventional rig's power consumption (29 percent). The only comment regarding lighting from the performers came from a dancer who stated how wonderful it was to not be "frying" under the stage lights. Having previously toured Opera Erotique in 2004, I was struck by the added advantage of a fixture not much bigger than a cigar box and weighing 2.8 pounds, offering ease of transport, lighter hanging rigs and less wear-and-tear on crew. For those of you who work in found performance spaces, imagine, 18 Color Block 2s on a single U-ground outlet!
From "Inside Theatre" guest commentary by William J. Mackwood, PLSN, Sept. 2010
