A brand new production of The Devil Wears Prada has hit the runway at the Dominion Theatre in London’s West End, fresh from its out-of-town previews at Plymouth Theatre Royal, with an original score and a dozen new songs by Elton John, lyrics by Shaina Taub and Mark Sonnenblick, and direction by three-time Tony Award winner, Jerry Mitchell. The show’s lighting was supplied by PRG, a company with a long pedigree and strong tradition for supporting West End theatre, from its origins on Broadway to is current dedicated ambassadors, Jon Cadbury and Peter Marshall, who have been active in supporting West End and fringe theaters for many years. Bruno Poet is the lighting designer for the production and was supported by Tamykha Patterson as associate lighting designer, the production electrician was Ian Moulds and the entire production was managed by Simon Marlow and assisted by Oliver Ellerton.

PRG Executive Chairman, Chief Creative Officer and Founder, Jere Harris, worked hard to secure PRG as the lighting supplier for Bruno Poet’s sleek and elegant lighting design, simultaneously choosing to upgrade PRG’s theatre lighting inventory to include the most recent and relevant theatre technology. “The Devil Wears Prada has given us the opportunity to bring our equipment bang up to date with significant CAPEX investment in what is proving to be state-of-the-art industry equipment for theatre lighting designers,” explains Cadbury.

Investments include Mac Ultra Performances, Colorforce II LED battens, Martin Mac One Beam Washes, GLP X5 Compact Wash fixtures, GrandMA3 Light control consoles and “a whole load of networking equipment.” These sit alongside a whole raft of lighting equipment already in the PRG inventory to bring lighting designers the best in current theatre technology.

The fixtures were specified by Poet to provide an adaptable rig that could cope with the fastmoving design of the show which changes rapidly from location to location, with book scenes alternating with musical numbers, office scenes with catwalk shows, all against back drops of the New York skyline and Paris’s Eiffel Tower. 

Echoing the contemporary style of catwalk lighting as well as provide naturalistic lighting for the narrative moments, the proscenium is outlined with 76 GLP X5 Compact Wash fixtures. These were integrated into the set at a very early stage to give a sense of scale in addition to illuminating performers, and chosen for their quietness as well as their output and color matching. “All our wash lights are now from the GLP X5 range so very consistent in terms of their colors,” explains Poet. “I particularly like the fact they have the lime chip which means they can make much more subtle pastel shades than the original RGBW LED sources. Many of the scenes are backlit in color washes from the two overhead bars of ten GLP X5 battens, and we have twenty X5 washes overhead as well. It’s a huge advantage to have all the wash fixtures matching color perfectly.” Cadbury agrees, “We are very pleased to have bought these fixtures and introduce the current generation of top of the range wash lights to our inventory.”

The beautiful image of the New York skyline on the backcloth is illuminated upstage and downstage by four lines of Colorforce II LED battens from groundrow and overhead positions. These also help bring a glow to the windows of the skyscrapers – cleverly masked from behind – as daylight fades. “I’ve always liked these units,” says Poet. “They do a beautiful even wash across the backdrops in very limited space and work very well with the colors on the cloth.”

29 Mac Ultra Performances are the workhorses of the show, nine of which are rigged front-of-house on advance bars to provide specials and face lights; the rest are spaced overhead for backlights and beam effects.  36 Martin Mac One Beam Wash are rigged on three frames that fly in as set decoration and are used for backlighting the staircase in the stunning set piece in Act I and provide an ‘economical and very bright array of concert style lighting’ during the finale. “I’ve never used them before and am very happy with them,” says Poet. “The aura looks very nice from a distance and beams are excellent.” Cadbury confirms, “The Mac Ones are small, light, fast and very bright. They are a significant addition to our equipment and have been very successful on Broadway.”

PRG was also happy to invest in the most recent GrandMA3 control which is perhaps an unusual choice for theatre, and its first commercial musical in the West End or on Broadway. However, Poet is a great advocate of GrandMA3 in the many other areas of lighting in which he works, and he and programmer Max Narula have worked very closely with MA Lighting to develop new software features.

PRG also supplied, at Poet’s request, three Robe iForte LTX FS followspots with LightMaster Side Control handles – the first time these have been used in the West End. These allow operators to use the spot “in a traditional way but with a super-bright moving light with high color rendering. It gives us the ability to control colour from the lighting desk and do live crossfades from one color to another, which is hard to do with a traditional followspot. Operators also have good access to dimmer and iris faders with precise indicators visible on their read outs.”

A PRG Ground Control system is also employed and operated by one of the spot operators at on two occasions during the show. This controls a Mac Ultra fixture centre stage to which PRG has added a camera and is used as a remote followspot backlight, controlled by the operator at the front of house position, who can see what the Mac Ultra sees through the Ground Control camera.

“We are delighted to be refreshing our hire stock by investing in the next generation of fixtures and control systems equipment,” concludes Cadbury. “It’s an exciting time, and an interesting and exciting show to be involved with. Picking the right time to invest in the best kit at the optimum point of product development is always a big decision for a rental house. Standards are now settling and this moment marks a significant investment in theatre-orientated equipment for PRG – one which, combined with our experience and expertise, will ensure we can continue to offer the best to our customers into the foreseeable future.”

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Article Sourced from PLSN: Projection, Lights, and Staging News