Category: Theatre

Auld acquaintance

Working in theater and other live performing arts can be lonely at times. All relationships are liminial but it feels like those of us the arts have gotten used to much more temporary bonds than most of the public. We come together for a season, a month, or even a weekend, expend tremendous amounts of energy to create a piece of art, and then we go our separate ways.

And then one random Tuesday afternoon you go to a product demo at a university within a few hours drive and you discover that one of your friends from grad school, someone you haven’t seen in twenty years, is the professor of lighting.

Current Mood: 🙁melancholy

National Theatre Live: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Another NTL at the PAC. This is the production from last March with Imelda Staunton as Martha. There were a few video glitches in the first act but I switched to the other recording and everything behaved after that. Other than that it’s fine; great performances, great set, good lighting. The sound is … something.

The vocal performance ranges from quiet introspection to shrieking argument which makes it hard to get a good level for this audience. I did like this thing the production did at the end of the second act – George throws his book and hits the chimes of the doorbell, setting them ringing. When the curtain closed for the short interval, they kept the ringing going, keeping the tension from the end of the act continue through.

Checking my math



A standard HPL 575 lamp produces approximately 16.5k lumens. An FEL 1kw lamp produces, according to every source I can find, produces 27.5k lumens.

But a Source 4 36 degree fixture lights up the stage far brighter than a 30 degree Berkey Colortran fixture. I know this. I’ve seen it. In addition it’s lighter, easier to focus, uses less electricity, and produces a cleaner beam because of the improved optics and reflector. So why am I suddenly so hung up on the initial lumens of the lamps? Replacing a set of Colortrans with a set of Jrs. should be a no-brainer, so why am I hesitating now?