The dance team that can be seen in Carrie Underwood's Something in the Water and So You Think You Can Dance? created a show that is immaculately choreographed, requiring lighting designers Seth Jackson and Nathan W. Scheuer to create a rig mainly comprised of VL 3500 Spots.
"We needed the framing shutters, the zoom, the iris, all of those elements to lock in with the incredible specificity of the choreography," said Jackson. In addition to the Spots, Bandit provided Impressions for wash fixtures and a row of ColorBlaze 72 to light the upstage scenic.
"One of the reasons that myself and Nathan love working with these guys is that is such a collaborative adventure," said Jackson. "We've been with them since their first full production performance as Shaping Sound, and we've developed such a great energy with them that we find ourselves all throwing ideas around, inventing things in rehearsal, and generally enjoying the creative process together."
Bandit's team worked to make sure every need for that creative process was accounted for, both in preproduction and while the show was on the road. "Bandit has always been very accommodating with any and all of our needs, be it getting us a repair or replacement quickly, or rethinking all of the cabling scenarios with me to accommodate the dancers' traffic patterns," said production manager Robby MacLean.
Jackson referred to his experience with Bandit as 'brilliant,' saying, "This show required someone who could get the rig up, keep it working, focus an extremely complicated show, and make sure everything comes off every night." Bandit vice president Mike Golden's solution to providing that someone was lighting director Teresa Porterfield-Fensler, a Bandit team member who was called nothing short of spectacular by Jackson.
(Jim Evans)
