German musical audience has fun with 80s NDW music, Rubik's cube, and recent lighting technology

German musical audience has fun with 80s flair and recent technology

W-DMX once again was gracing the stages of German musical theatre. Following a successful run with Wicked – The Witches of Oz, the system is being used on another popular musical, 'Ich will Spaß (“I want to have fun!”). The soundtrack of the 80s-themed musical 'Ich will Spaß' features the ”Neue Deutsche Welle” music style. Tennis socks and net shirts, riots versus peaceful demonstrations – the eighties had many expressions. It was also the time when Neue Deutsche Welle, short NDW, was born and Rubik's Cube was a bestselling puzzle.

The period will be revived in the Colosseum Theater Essen with around 20 NDW hits like ”Hurra, hurra, die Schule brennt” by Extrabreit, ”Hohe Berge” by Fräulein Menke, ”Leuchtturm” by Nena, “Codo” by DÖF, ”Ich will was mir gefällt” by UKW, and – of course – “Ich will Spaß” (I want to have fun!) by Markus.
With 83 moving lights, amongst them 49 x Vari*Lite VL3500 Spot & Wash, and 99 ETC Source Four, the lighting rig offers a professional design. To represent the colorful feel of the 80s, the stage is dominated by a giant Rubik´s Cube equipped with 293 MR16s, custom created for the set design, with 197 LED/RGB-Modules built in. The 950 square foot (88 sqm) video wall is one of the largest moving screens in German staging. Furthermore, the edge of the stage is fitted with 54 “B250” LED stripes from Schnick-Schnack-Systems. Power and data distribution for the lighting of the Cube is located beneath the stage in a revolving custom rack. The inner lighting of the cube is controlled by 10 pieces of 12 x 2.3kW MA Digital Touring dimmers. The lighting system is controlled by a grandMA full-size, one grandMA light, one grandMA replay unit and five MA NSPs.
Production Electrician Andy Peistrup says, “With the consoles of the grandMA Series, the production had a flexible system which was extended with further consoles during the build and programming phases. Thus it was possible to program lighting and video simultaneously, and generate views for the designers. As we had the option to increase the system with further MA NSPs at any time, the team was able to respond immediately to any spontaneous changes.”
To enable extreme flexibility for the onstage cube, for instance by turning and folding several elements, the installers fitted a Wireless Solution W-DMX BlackBox Transmitter and a BlackBox Receiver for wireless DMX transmission.
”The Wireless Solution technology was already utilized in the musical Wicked – The Witches of Oz in Stuttgart,” Peistrup explains, ”Wireless Solution W-DMX is more reliable than any other wireless system. Other convincing features were the compact design, the possibility to expand the system on demand and the option to run the receiver on low voltage power, which is especially helpful with the battery powered stage sets and props in use.”
Andy Voller was in charge of the lighting design. Carline Brouwer directed. Stage design was made by Christoph Weyers. Arjen Klerkx and Coen Bouman took care of the video design. Thomas Giegerich handled media servers and LED panels.