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In this episode, Ken introduces himself, the team, the idea behind Encores!, and preps you for the schedule you are about to hear.
Our team worked with industry experts to create an audio learning exercise to help fine-tune your live programming skills.
Practice your programming skills in real-time as you listen to award-winning Lighting Designer Ken Billington direct his lighting team for the production of New York City Center Encores’ Me and My Girl.
Hi. It's Ken Billington here. And, we're gonna take you through a little stroll through lighting Me and My Girl at Encores. I'm the lighting designer and, I've lit as of today, which is now after, about 45 encores. Encores are great American musicals in concert.
Speaker 1:Just so you know what I do, I am a lighting designer. I've led over a 100 Broadway shows. Some hits, some flops, some misses, some wonderful things that didn't make it. Currently, I'm Broadway with things like Chicago. I did like the original Sweeney Todd.
Speaker 1:I've done a great deal of opera and off Broadway, concerts, you know. So I've done a little bit of everything, architectural lighting. I sort of do it all. But when I was growing up, what I wanted to be was a Broadway lighting designer. So, I do that, and the fun part is I get to do lots of other things.
Speaker 1:So that's sort of who I am. I love what I do as a lighting designer. So, I think from what we're about to hear, you will get a little more sense of how we work, here in New York and work on a schedule that's really fast. But to go back to Encores, which is Great American Musicals, they are shows presented at the New York City Center for, approximately 1 week of rehearsal, 1 week of performances, and a day and a half of technical. So what that really means is they do these big shows.
Speaker 1:At the moment, I'm doing Maca Mable. You're gonna hear Me and My Girl, which is another musical. But they've done lots of them. Chicago started there in 1997, and it's still running all these years later on Broadway and around the world. So so anyway, what makes Encores interesting?
Speaker 1:Well, it's usually the complete orchestration from the original production. The old Broadway musicals used to always have 27, 28 piece orchestras. So we always have an orchestra of that size if that is what the orchestration was. We have a singing ensemble and a dancing ensemble, usually a cast of 32. If you go back into the fifties and sixties, cast for a musical were usually about 50 people It was singers who sang and dancers who danced and principals who played the principals.
Speaker 1:So anyway, they try and do all that and they hire all good people, great directors and choreographers. This production was, directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, Tony Award winning choreographer. And so you know their schedule. The actors go into rehearsal on Monday. On Friday, I see a run through.
Speaker 1:On Saturday, they block on stage. On Monday we get the stage for technical rehearsal until 6 pm. On Tuesday we do an afternoon dress rehearsal, and Tuesday night, a invited dress rehearsal with, about 2,000 people at it. Opens on Wednesday. Closes on Sunday.
Speaker 1:Seven performances. So that is the way we're gonna go about it. And what makes it interesting is I don't have much more time than the actors. So we will load in on, on Monday, and will be finished by Thursday. And if you look at the light plot, you can see this is not small.
Speaker 1:This isn't 10 lights. It's a moving light package. It is LEDs or color scrollers. It is 3 follow spots and it is a fully cued musical. It has dance numbers, it is costume, but it has simple scenery.
Speaker 1:Alan Moyer designs the scenery, and it is quite simple. So we have a simple set and a cast, and we now try and present this as best we can to to let you remember what this musical probably was like when it was done originally. And now we'll talk about how we get there. Okay. Let's talk about the lighting and the scheduling.
Speaker 1:The schedule is really important here. On Monday morning, I walk into the theater at 8 a. M. It takes the crew 15 minutes to get everything up and working. At 8:15, I start lighting the show.
Speaker 1:I have focused it, obviously, before that. I start lighting the show, and I can go to 9:45. That's an hour and a half. Hopefully, I have lit all of act 1, which on some of the encores can be a 150 light cues. The cast comes in at 9:45 and they work until 12:30 and, in that time, we will run act 1.
Speaker 1:We will stop and clean up and do some spacing, and if something looks bad, we'll stop and I'll relight or not relight. But the cast goes to lunch at 12:30. They don't let us go to lunch, so my programmers and I stay, and we light from 12:30 to 2 o'clock while the orchestra is doing a sound check. At some point during that, they have brought us lunch, so we'll take 15 minutes, eat our sandwich, and jump back in. At 2 o'clock, the cast comes back.
Speaker 1:We now have the 28 piece orchestra, the full cast, and we follow spots, obviously, since the cast has been on the stage. And we will start a run through of the entire show at 2 o'clock with the complete show and go home with a finished product at 6 The following day, Tuesday, in the morning I can do some clean up if I need to cues at that point and then at 2 o'clock we add the costumes and we do a dress rehearsal and that finishes at 4:30, and then we come back and we do a performance at 7 pm for the 2,000 people. So what you will hear is the speed which I have to work at. What do I know before I start turning the lights on? I have watched rehearsals.
Speaker 1:I have written in my script all the notes I need to know about where people are standing and what they're doing. I have given queue numbers to the stage manager before we start, so the stage manager can start calling queues when the actors hit the stage. So part of what you're going to hear is a stage manager calling light cues. Sometimes those light cues don't exist, but the stage manager just keeps calling. You know, it's like the energizer bunny just keeps right on going, unless I tell them to stop, but they keep calling, and we'll figure out if that part works.
Speaker 1:And I have 2 programmers. We are on, EOS TI console. Programmer Ron, Greg, Greg Chauvet, is doing conventionals. Programmer 2, Chad Lefebvre, is doing moving lights, all the automated equipment. I came up with this method years ago at Encores because it's just a faster way while I'm looking at things.
Speaker 1:The automated programmer can be marking, presetting and doing everything. The whole show is run by Greg. The moving lights are on a separate cue list than the conventionals. So you will hear me, Greg, do this, or Chad, do that. You will find magic sheets with the light plots and the hookups that might help you.
Speaker 1:You will also see some pictures there. And the reason I think the pictures might be helpful, this might make you understand what we're doing. One of the is just a work light picture. So you'll see a white cyclorama and a door in front of it. You'll see the 28 piece orchestra and then you'll see downstage is where we perform the show.
Speaker 1:You'll see different versions of different sets. You will hear a lot of me saying tablecloth, the tablecloth is so bright, you'll hear me talking about the tablecloth. You will look in the pictures, you will see the tablecloth, You will know what I'm talking about. By the way, the time the pictures were taken, the table cloth looked good. It looked so good when we started.
Speaker 1:And I think you can type along to this, and you need to listen because I don't repeat myself. I am looking at the stage. I am not looking at monitors. I do have monitors, so I can reference. But I keep going because if I don't keep talking, I'm not gonna get finished.
Speaker 1:And this is a union crew, union actors, union orchestra, and we have the time allotted, which I've told you. And we sorta have to get it done in that amount of time. When you hear further on, I think it's episodes 12 and 13, is the dress rehearsal. So we've been through the show once. That's the dress rehearsal where the costumes have shown up, and hopefully, costumes look good.
Speaker 1:But the stage manager will be calling, and I will keep lighting while the stage manager is calling queues. The programmers know not to hit the go button if I am talking, so the stage manager may say, lights 5, go, but if I am calling channels, they will not hit the go button until I am finished. So what would happen is I'll say update and go, and then they'll catch up. You will hear the programmers say, cue only, should we update that? Should we record that?
Speaker 1:They will question me. They're not questioning my artistic choices. They are questioning, do I really wanna go forward without recording this? So they're sort of my safety net. So have at it.
Speaker 1:Beginning, it will be a little slow. It will get faster. By the way, if you hear me say Aaron, Aaron is my assistant who's sitting to my left. He's calling the foul spots. You will not hear him.
Speaker 1:And the stage manager is Nancy Hittleman, and so you may hear me say Nancy. So the names you're gonna hear are Greg, Chad, Nancy, and Aaron, and now you know who they are. Have fun.