Lighting 'Grease'

[Ben Bodsworth]

Hi Guys,

 

I'm head of lighting at my school, and they are putting a production of 'Grease' on in december.

 

I've lit Grease a few times before at various other places, but am getting bored of lighting certain sections in certain ways each time, one of the sections I'm most bored with is 'Summer Nights', where I light both groups (boys and girls) while they are singing to their group, then as the music slows down the director always has Danny & Sandy move into the centre and sing to eachother, where I fade the lights to just a single spot in the centre with Danny and Sandy in the middle and then as the chorus sing the long drawn out 'Nighhhhhhhhhhhhhhts' bring the lights back up on each group.

 

Has anyone got any other ideas on how I could light this section??

 

Thanks

[Ynot]

Has anyone got any other ideas on how I could light this section??

This depends entirely on how the director a) stages it and b) wants it lit.

You can maybe take some suggestions to the production meeting, but if it's a December show that may well be too late now.

 

Personally, the idea that Danny/Sandy come together at the end of the song is poor staging, as they don't actually get to meet again at that point. OK - you could say it's stretching the imagination a tad that way, but it's better maybe to have them at different points when they close the song.

 

As for different ways of lighting it, think direction, maybe - have you back/top lit it instead of just from front? Play with a coloured back-light with an open or CT front. If the boys/girls groups are still separated, try washing them with a dark colour instead of blacking them out.

 

TD

[Ben Bodsworth]

"You can maybe take some suggestions to the production meeting, but if it's a December show that may well be too late now."

 

Its never too late for a production meeting at our school, and the head of drama gets her crazy friends to help with productions, one happened to be interested in lighting, and was looking at the patch on our board the day before our opening night last year and descided that he didnt like the way we had patched it, so he cleared the desk at 10pm! (we had a performance to middle schools at 9am the next day, so me and my assistant were patching at 7.30am and didnt finish putting back into the board what he had taken out till 8.50! a close shave! sorry, bit off topic!

[Ynot]

"You can maybe take some suggestions to the production meeting, but if it's a December show that may well be too late now."

 

Its never too late for a production meeting at our school,

What I meant was that at this relatively late stage, the director have have blocked, set and rehearsed the song with the cast. It's seldom a good idea to change cast's moves unless they have to be. Doesn't half confuse the little dears!!

.....and descided that he didnt like the way we had patched it, so he cleared the desk at 10pm! (we had a performance to middle schools at 9am the next day, so me and my assistant were patching at 7.30am and didnt finish putting back into the board what he had taken out till 8.50! a close shave! sorry, bit off topic!

This I find was extremely poor form!

For anyone to come into a venue and insist on changing something like the patching setup at the 11th hour is scandalous...... Unless, of course, there was something inherently dangerous about how it was set up of course.... like overloaded circuits, eg.