Shrek The Musical, which has enjoyed an extended three-month run at the Amsterdam RAI Theatre, has been playing regularly to full houses in the 1750-capacity venue.
Giving increased realism to the friendly green ogre has been SGM's new P-5 Washlight, from the inventory of lighting rental company, Focus Amsterdam.
The technical production specialists were invited by theatre producers Albert Verlinde Entertainment to provide lighting equipment - and just as they have for one of the promoters' other musicals, Annie, found the P-5 to provide a compelling solution.
Focus account manager, Marijn Muilenburg, said that although the show producers had purchased the rights to Shrek from Dreamworks, there was enough creative freedom in the agreement for them to introduce complete new décor, light and costumes.
He explained, "About one week before the load-in no decision had been made about which fixtures would light the different horizons. We knew that Rent-All had ordered the SGM P-5, and that the first shipment was on its way.
"However, we had one P-5 for demonstration purposes which I took to the rehearsal studio to show lightning designer Marc Heinz. He was really impressed with the output and so we immediately decided to go with it; this gave us just four days between the products arriving in Holland and the load-in at the RAI Theatre."
Heinz has used 34 of the wash lights - 17 on the ground and 17 overhead - in his set. He explained, "I had to light five different backdrops - not only static light images but sunsets, sunrises and all kinds of effects. In many scenes the set was one of these backdrops.
"I knew that with conventional cyclorama lights this would not have the impact I was looking for so I asked Marijn to see what LED fixtures we could use to achieve my goal.
"I was impressed by the output and the colours achievable with the SGM P-5, since in my opinion the look of a production should be luminous and bright. I felt this was the fixture to use and it looks like we were right, since it has proved to be a 'show winner'."
