The Beggar’s Opera
Because it’s not quite enough to be working on one show, I’m designing the lights for Theatre Gigante’s remount of their adaptation of The Beggar’s Opera. That means a week of driving back and forth to Milwaukee for tech week.
The performance will take place in the UW-Milwaukee’s studio space. It’s a rep plot and only 48 dimmers, so there’s not much you can do beyond change color and swap a few things out for specials. I have to say, though, that this is the first show I’ve worked on in this space that didn’t require us to spend the better part of a day putting the rep plot back together after hard student usage.
Here’s a pic of the cast getting ready for our first tech. It was pretty much a cue to cue since I was able to slam most of the cues into the board during rehearsal on Sunday.
![](https://i.imgur.com/Gqw6ICa.jpg?1)
As you can see, there’s not much set, as Gigante is presenting this in rather meta-mode — it all takes place in a rehearsal hall.
Here’s a pic of board operator and semi-SM Sam Butchart in the “booth” at the Expression.
![](https://i.imgur.com/b0mis3x.jpg?1)
It’s nice to work on a board that isn’t overkill and you don’t have to go through ten layers of commands just to record a cue. Ah, the olden days.
Finally, here’s the tech table.
![](https://i.imgur.com/t54z9Io.jpg?1)