This weekend, I had the chance to see Cabaret at UCI (Awesome work, Jimmy!). This is a picture I took of the lighting of the house as the audience was entering the theater. I thought the choice to light not only the stage, but also the house and walls of the theater was a super compelling and immersive choice. The red color and ornate gobo definitely made me think of 'passion' right away. Cabaret is such a sultry and flashy show, and getting into that space is so key to really feeling the impact of the show. I think that the color, shapes, and intensity of the light definitely put us as the audience into that passionate environment, and tell us what we should expect as we get ready to see the performers.
From a design standpoint, this definitely made me reflect on the pre-show lighting from other shows I've seen recently. It's something we don't pay as much attention to as we do the lighting of the actual show, but it's the first impression an audience has of the lighting and the theater environment. Going forward, I definitely will start to pay more attention to default lighting in shows, and appreciate the carefully thought-out ones as seen here.
I am so glad you enjoyed the show and started thinking about the "Warmers" cue we enter into the space - it is so important to create the mood. I saw the prompt of Passion in the subject line, but you did not mention it in the body of the post, make sure to do that in the future. Thank you!
ReplyDelete