Due to open at the Cambridge Theatre on September 26th, The Beautiful Game is written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton and follows the fortunes of members of a boys football team in Belfast during the late sixties. The production is being directed by Robert Carsen, more familiar from his work in the world of opera. To light the production, Carsen has turned to his regular collaborator, lighting designer Jean Kalman. White Light will supply Kalman with a rig that includes four 4K HMI fresnels, four 5K fresnels and over one hundred ETC Source Four profile spots. The Moving Light Company will supply fourteen Martin PAL1200 framing spotlights, twenty-six DHA Digital Light Curtains and five Strand Pirouette PCs, with the whole rig controlled from a Flying Pig WholeHog 2 console. Kalman's team includes associate lighting designer Alistair Grant, production electrician Pete Lambert and programmer Stuart Porter; the show's production managers are Stewart Crosbie and Simon Marlowe.
White Light's have already been closely involved with The Beautiful Game, having supplied the lighting rig for the workshop production at the same venue in February.
Napoleon is scheduled to open three weeks after The Beautiful Game, at the Shaftesbury Theatre, and will also be directed by a leading name from the world of opera, Francesca Zambello. Zambello will be collaborating once again with Olivier- and Tony-award winning lighting designer Rick Fisher, with whom she worked on Lady In The Dark at the Royal National Theatre. Fisher's rig will include over one hundred ETC Source Fours and four Robert Juliat Aramis followspots as well as nearly seventy moving lights, including Strand Pirouette PCs, pitching DHA Digital Light Curtains, Martin MAC600 washlights and Amptown Washlights from The Moving Light Company. The rig will be programmed by Andrew Voller, with Martin Chisnall serving as the show's production electrician and White Light's Jason Larcombe as assistant lighting designer. The show's production managers are, again, Stewart Crosbie and Simon Marlowe.
The Beautiful Game and Napoleon will join many other London shows currently using White Light rigs, including the newly opened The Witches of Eastwick, the Tony award winning Fosse and the spectacular Notre Dame de Paris. A full listing of shows using White Light equipment can be found at the White Light web site, www.whitelight.ltd.uk. More details about The Beautiful Game and Napoleon can also be found on the web at www.thebeautifulgamemusical.com and www.napoleonthemusical.com respectively.