A few months ago, I invited by one of my dear friends to go see the Broadway hit “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” in Philadelphia. The show tells the story of 15 year old Christopher Boone, who has an extraordinary brain and is exceptional at math while ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He sets out to solve a mystery of who killed his neighbor’s dog, and his detective work takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world. The Olivier and Tony Award®-winning play was adapted from Mark Haddon’s best-selling book.
The role of Christopher has been played by 18 actors since the show originally opened in London. Luke Treadaway, who originated the role at the National Theatre, received a 2013 Olivier Award for Best Actor and Alex Sharp won the Tony Award® for Best Actor on Broadway.
An Olivier (as in actor Lawrence Olivier) Award, for those of you who don’t follow the theater, is London’s version of the Tony. Oh and yes it won five Tony Awards®, including Best Play. So suffice it to say, don’t take my word for it but it is a great play and well worth the price of admission. Here we are getting ready for it to start – selfie time – that’s my friend Nancy!
Here is what the stage set looked like before the production began…
Looks pretty sparse, right? The girl at the theater was curious about “Curious Incident” so I did some digging about the AV and here is what I found out:
As well as a variety of pre-programmable lights that can change direction and color under the control of a lighting control computer, it’s powered by 6 high power projectors – two stacked to get the required brightness on the stage floor, then one each on the stage left, stage right, upstage wall, plus an additional one on the circle front of house. These are fed with a variety of different images and pre-recorded video sequences to help to portray Christopher’s world, as well as his inner feelings. These combine with a huge number of LED pin-point light sources built into the stage floor, which are controlled by the lighting computer, and also the video system, so a fluid mix between light and video can be achieved. Here’s a look at what it looks like in live action:
Now you ask – who has the projection prowess to pull this off? None other than our friends at Panasonic! They are using 4 Panasonic PT-DS12K and 2 Panasonic PT-DS21K.
We had a great time, enjoyed the show immensely and I ended up solving a little mystery of my own. Who done it? Panasonic!
For more information on these projectors, please don’t ask me, I’m just the marketing chick. Ask the real expert Steve Alexander, our business development manager for Panasonic. He’s an audio expert too!
No animals were harmed in the production (fake dog on the stage).
