Page 40 - Lighting & Sound America (December 2019) Magazine

THEATRE

Scenery/projections looking for a way of telling the story within an expanding
You will look long and hard to find another musical that and decreasing black box,” Thompson says. “It was so we
requires as many locations as Tina. It unfolds in flash- could have a big space occasionally, while scaling down
back—everyone interviewed for this story referred to it as for more intimate scenes. I was also quite keen on being
a memory play—as the star waits to take the stage at her able to create panoramic horizontal shots.” Thus, there are
legendary 1988 concert in Brazil, where she appeared four black portals, outlined in a pale wood look, that
before a Guinness World Record-breaking audience of expand and contract from scene to scene. “They work like
188,000. Between this brief prologue—staged in a dark a camera,” Thompson says. “It looks very simple but it’s
void, with a set of stairs leading to an entry through which quite a complicated trick. Basically, each portal has two
we see glittering lights—and the finale, which explodes on legs with a header that slides between them; the header
the Brazil stage, the story shifts from a rural Tennessee has a male overlap that grips down, past the legs; they are
church to various domestic interiors, nightclubs, recording covered by sleeves that are part of the header. Each portal
studios, hotels, airline ticket counters, and hospital rooms. has LEDs built in it, but you only see their glow coming
“There are so many locations,” says Thompson, laugh- from behind the slot that holds him. That way, they aren’t
ing quietly. “It was an impossible project; it’s written like a glary; I didn’t want it to look like Radio City Music Hall.”
movie. And there’s no allowance for theatre slowness. This Within the portals, each location is sketched in eco-
was the main thing to solve, especially because I wasn’t nomically, using a wagon that rolls on from the wings and
keen on having lots of scenery rumbling onstage.” Indeed, wall and door units that rise up from below. Turner’s home
such an approach, in addition to busting the production in Nutbush, Tennessee is little more than a tree against a
budget, would have slowed the action to a crawl. sky vista; a set of chairs brought onstage transforms the
Instead, the designer came up with a remarkably ele- space into a church. A door unit and wagon, the latter
gant solution that consists of three main elements. The bearing a table, becomes the interior of the Bullock house.
first involves a strategy for reshaping the stage. “I was Similarly, a wall unit and wagon delineate Tina’s bedroom

The actors are fitted with DPA 2028 mics and Sennheiser Digital 6000 wireless systems.

40 • December 2019 • Lighting&Sound America