ETC on the road with Evita

This autumn, the ensemble of the Altes Schauspielhaus Stuttgart invited guests from 30 cities across Germany, Switzerland and Italy to accompany them on a musical journey – more specifically, to Argentina. This Ulf Dietrich production of the hit musical Evita, penned by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, was on the road from September through to early November. The tight schedule, comprising 30 performances over the course of two months, demanded a lot from the cast and the technical team. Rolf Spahn, the production’s lighting and stage designer, put his trust in ETC to provide a lighting solution he could rely on.

Spahn selected four each of ETC’s Source Four^® LED Daylight, Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr^®, and Source Four tungsten fixtures, plus five ETC Selador^® Desire^® D60s. Using a PC with ETCnomad software and a visualisation program, Spahn deployed the Source Four luminaires as side lights and the Desire D60s for backlight. "The ETC fixtures are user-friendly and extremely reliable. This is extremely important when travelling, which we are doing every day with this production. In addition, they are sometimes exposed to significant temperature fluctuations when, for example, we drive the truck to the next venue after a performance. We had no failures at all, "says Spahn. “Furthermore, the softness of the light of the D60 cannot be achieved with normal PARs, the same result is not achievable with conventional halogen lamps." Spahn also admired the Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr for its colour quality, ease of use and reliability.

For lighting control, Spahn opted for an Ion^® from ETC’s Eos^® family. He says: "The Ion is ideal for this kind of project. It is small, accessible and fits neatly into compact spaces. We also had moving heads, which can be controlled with the console. With the Ion, I had all the functions I needed."

A ColorSource Relay wireless power control solution was chosen to transmit DMX signals to the fixtures. "In one of the venues, the house technician told me that – with another system – DMX signals were sometimes interrupted by interference, particularly when the venue was full of people on mobile phones," says Spahn. “With the ColorSource Relay, however, there were no problems at all."

Spahn received enthusiastic feedback from the managers of the various theatres about the ETC products he was using on the production. "When the technicians saw what could be achieved with the ETC equipment in their own venues, they were quite amazed, especially by the LED technology and the x7 colour mixing system."

Photo credit: Sabine Haymann