LES MISERABLES, 1997 UK Tour/Australia - the 'Tenth Anniversary Production'
This UK tour was the first "ground-up" re-design of the show, using moving lights to make it more easily tourable. Digital Light Curtains instead of the earlier traditional light curtains (the retrofit of these to London came after the UK tour opened). High End StudioColors replacing a twocolour Par Can backlight wash for speed of focus but adding a great deal more flexibility. The show didn't become "colourful" but certainly acquired a greater tonal range since the light curtains could now change colour - so, for example, the prologue became a warmer sepia colour. Most extreme colour moment was the tricolour light curtain added in the curtain call. This was descended from the light curtain tricolour created for the 10th Anniversary Concert at the Royal Albert Hall lit by David and Patrick Woodroffe. The difference: in the concert it went red-white-blue. When setting up the tour Claude-Michel Schoenberg, the composer, looked at it and said "non, non, non, that is a union jack, the French flag is blue-white-red", so we swapped it around and it's been that way ever since. (Deeper confession: the original red-white-blue cue WAS actually a union jack, which I made for the Scout Annual Gang Show in the Albert Hall, which "borrowed" the Les Mis concert the night before the concert itself. I stole my own cue when we needed an act 1 finale!. Don't tell anyone...)
This version also replaced the Carousel slide projectors that originally did the show's captions with Source Fours fitted with custom glass gobos to achieve the same effect and used Source Fours generally through the rig including for the battleflash effects. Followspots remained unchanged, 1kW Beamlights by Pani.
Scenically, the set became "glossy black" rather than the "dark brown" of the original. That change was carried through to all subsequent productions.
This design became the basis of all subsequent productions, which included Australia later the same year, Antwerp in Belgium, Mexico (using the Australian touring set), Berlin and others that I've probably forgotten but I tend to think of them all as a set. In all versions there were various changes to the lighting to accommodate the slightly different sets (particularly different revolve/barricade sizes), since in many cases the sets were re-cycled from earlier productions rather than built new. The most interesting difference was in Australia where the revolve was automated rather than manually controlled, which meant it was almost impossible to achieve some of the transitions that were easy with manual control, particularly timing the end of the movement to land with the end of the music as different conductors varied the tempo.
Included are the lighting plan from the UK Tour, a Cue List from Australia, and various bits of paperwork from the tour, Australia and Antwerp including hand-drawn focus notes (highlights - the whole set might be a bit much!), plus a Cue List and the 'private' list that formed the basis of the translation from the 'conventional' version of the show to the moving light version. The most interesting document, I think, is the one showing what changed from version to version (mainly staging changes that led to lighting changes, but also differences in the lighting, particularly the practicals that came with whatever version of the set it was - ie. were the stars fibres in the back wall or flown pea bulbs, or, best of all, both!). I find this the most important document on these big long-running, multiple versions shows, particularly when you go to production 5 which has the associate director from production 3, the associate designer from production 2, the associate LD from production 4 and they all have their own take on what the 'correct' version is! But John Caird would also always show up and try to change one revolve cue - Eponine top of act 2 - to go the other way before discovering what a mess it made of the very tightly organised revolve/scenery track on the show for the rest of the act and so changed it back.
Control from a Strand 500-series console running both conventional and moving lights. DLCs running from their own Mac, triggered from the 500-series console. One programmer dealing with everything (whereas, by contrast, on Martin Guerre in1996 two consoles had been used with two operators, one for moving lights and the other for conventionals, with the data then merged into one console post-opening). I think it was on this show that I invented the term 'Lighting Programmer' (rather than 'Vari-Lite Programmer' or 'Moving Light Programmer') for myself, a term that seems to have been adopted by everyone now doing this job.
David's associate for these productions was Jenny Kagan.
from comments by Rob Halliday
This UK tour was the first "ground-up" re-design of the show, using moving lights to make it more easily tourable. Digital Light Curtains instead of the earlier traditional light curtains (the retrofit of these to London came after the UK tour opened). High End StudioColors replacing a twocolour Par Can backlight wash for speed of focus but adding a great deal more flexibility. The show didn't become "colourful" but certainly acquired a greater tonal range since the light curtains could now change colour - so, for example, the prologue became a warmer sepia colour. Most extreme colour moment was the tricolour light curtain added in the curtain call. This was descended from the light curtain tricolour created for the 10th Anniversary Concert at the Royal Albert Hall lit by David and Patrick Woodroffe. The difference: in the concert it went red-white-blue. When setting up the tour Claude-Michel Schoenberg, the composer, looked at it and said "non, non, non, that is a union jack, the French flag is blue-white-red", so we swapped it around and it's been that way ever since. (Deeper confession: the original red-white-blue cue WAS actually a union jack, which I made for the Scout Annual Gang Show in the Albert Hall, which "borrowed" the Les Mis concert the night before the concert itself. I stole my own cue when we needed an act 1 finale!. Don't tell anyone...)
This version also replaced the Carousel slide projectors that originally did the show's captions with Source Fours fitted with custom glass gobos to achieve the same effect and used Source Fours generally through the rig including for the battleflash effects. Followspots remained unchanged, 1kW Beamlights by Pani.
Scenically, the set became "glossy black" rather than the "dark brown" of the original. That change was carried through to all subsequent productions.
This design became the basis of all subsequent productions, which included Australia later the same year, Antwerp in Belgium, Mexico (using the Australian touring set), Berlin and others that I've probably forgotten but I tend to think of them all as a set. In all versions there were various changes to the lighting to accommodate the slightly different sets (particularly different revolve/barricade sizes), since in many cases the sets were re-cycled from earlier productions rather than built new. The most interesting difference was in Australia where the revolve was automated rather than manually controlled, which meant it was almost impossible to achieve some of the transitions that were easy with manual control, particularly timing the end of the movement to land with the end of the music as different conductors varied the tempo.
Included are the lighting plan from the UK Tour, a Cue List from Australia, and various bits of paperwork from the tour, Australia and Antwerp including hand-drawn focus notes (highlights - the whole set might be a bit much!), plus a Cue List and the 'private' list that formed the basis of the translation from the 'conventional' version of the show to the moving light version. The most interesting document, I think, is the one showing what changed from version to version (mainly staging changes that led to lighting changes, but also differences in the lighting, particularly the practicals that came with whatever version of the set it was - ie. were the stars fibres in the back wall or flown pea bulbs, or, best of all, both!). I find this the most important document on these big long-running, multiple versions shows, particularly when you go to production 5 which has the associate director from production 3, the associate designer from production 2, the associate LD from production 4 and they all have their own take on what the 'correct' version is! But John Caird would also always show up and try to change one revolve cue - Eponine top of act 2 - to go the other way before discovering what a mess it made of the very tightly organised revolve/scenery track on the show for the rest of the act and so changed it back.
Control from a Strand 500-series console running both conventional and moving lights. DLCs running from their own Mac, triggered from the 500-series console. One programmer dealing with everything (whereas, by contrast, on Martin Guerre in1996 two consoles had been used with two operators, one for moving lights and the other for conventionals, with the data then merged into one console post-opening). I think it was on this show that I invented the term 'Lighting Programmer' (rather than 'Vari-Lite Programmer' or 'Moving Light Programmer') for myself, a term that seems to have been adopted by everyone now doing this job.
David's associate for these productions was Jenny Kagan.
from comments by Rob Halliday
