JOHANNESBURG — Disney Theatrical’s musical, Beauty and the Beast, recently opened at the Artscape Opera House in Cape Town from the Montecasino Teatro Theatre in Fourways, Johannesburg, where it was seen by more than 160,000. The lighting rig there included 42 Robe ColorWash and ColorSpot 700E AT moving lights. Associate lighting designer Richard Knight recreated Natasha Katz’s original 1994 Broadway lighting design for the Johannesburg run. He has worked on several different Beauty productions over the years, and was the original moving light programmer for the U.S. tour that ran from 1999 to 2003.
The original show was one of the first Broadway productions to use moving lights extensively, so in this one, the Robes are vital to the show and are put through their paces. The lights were rigged on five over-stage bars and corresponding side stage ladders.
In Johannesburg, the show is being run from an grandMA full size console. Programmers included Glenn Duncan, DWR Distribution’s Nick Britz and South African associate designer Denis Hutchinson.
Beauty and the Beast is one of Knight’s top 10 shows. He said it was interesting remembering back to how they first created and lit the show. “It was extremely good when we first made it and is exceptionally well constructed in terms of the lighting ‘ebb and flow.’ It’s a great example of lighting being a significant contributor in narrating a timeless story.”
Pieter Toerien and Hazel Feldman are producing the show in South Africa, which was viewed by more than 160,000 in Johannesburg. All aspects of the staging, overseen by the international Disney production team of associate producer Michael Cassel, associate director/choreographer Jacqueline Dunnley-Wendt and the local South Africa resident team led by resident director Alan Swerdlow, have received acclaim as well.
Full technical production was supplied by Prosound. DWR Distribution cc is the exclusive distributor of MA Lighting in South Africa.
For more information, please visit www.robe.cz.
