has seen 2011 get off to a busy start, with the company supplying the lighting rigs to major new productions not just in the UK but as far afield as South Africa.
The show travelling south is Dreamgirls, the production which opened recently at the world famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem before touring the USA now moving to the Teatro at Montecasino in Johannesburg before travelling on to Cape Town. Directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom and designed by Robin Wagner, the show features lighting by Ken Billington, with whom White Light has enjoyed many collaborations since supplying the London production of Chicago in 1997 – a show the company continues to supply to this day. Dreamgirls’ production electrician Gerry Amies is currently putting the rig together at White Light’s London base; it will ship from there to South Africa in time for the show’s March opening in Johannesburg.
In London, White Light is supplying several new plays, including The Children’s Hour, starring Keira Knightley and Elisabeth Moss in a production directed by Ian Rickson, designed by Mark Thompson with lighting by Neil Austin at the Comedy Theatre, My Trip Down The Pink Carpet, lit by Jesse Belsky at the Apollo Theatre, and the season of three plays performed by the Moscow-based Sovremennik Theatre at the Noel Coward Theatre – the first time in over twenty years that a major Russian theatre company has performed in Britain’s capital.
Outside London, White Light is once again supplying Footloose, lit by James Whiteside, Buddy, lit by Joe Atkins, and Calendar Girls, lit by Tim Lutkin as they take to the road for 2011.
The new shows join the many other productions currently served by White Light, these including Billy Elliot, Chicago, Dirty Dancing, A Flea In Her Ear, Grease, Love Never Dies, Les Misérables, War Horse and the forthcoming Wizard of Oz in London, and We Will Rock You and Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella touring the UK.
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