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Menopause the Musical |
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Never ones to shy away from getting in touch with our feminine side, Point Source Productions were happy to make a further foray into musical theatre when we provided the lighting equipment for TAP Productions’ Menopause the Musical at the Shaw Theatre, Euston in Spring 2007.
The show, the brain child of writer Jeanie Linders, is a comic celebration of an erstwhile taboo subject, explored by four characters going through The Change. Set in a department store it uses hits from the ‘60s and ‘70s – with somewhat alternative lyrics – to make light of the subject, whilst at the same time, raising a great deal of money to go towards cancer research. Running in countries the world over, the 2005-6 tour alone raised over $500,000 for ovarian cancer research.
TAP Productions teamed up with UK based Celcius Management, who provided the technical team, headed by Technical Production Manager, Nadene Wheatley. Celcius Management had dealt with Point Source Productions on a number of previous occasions for corporate work and approached us as part of the tendering process.
“Point Source came back with a very competitive quote,” says Wheatley, “and were prepared to supply some very high quality kit. But what really clinched the deal was their willingness to go just that stage further by investing in some new Robert Juliat Super Korrigan followspots specifically for the show, turning everything around in a very short time.”
Owned by Euston Novotel, the Shaw Theatre also doubles as the hotel’s conference venue, and exists only with the proviso that it must be used as a theatre in the evening and a conference venue in the daytime. Consequently the technicians have to run a dual system of lighting, leaving space in front of any installed set for daytime conference activity and transforming back into traditional theatre space for evening performances.
Point Source Productions’ background in both theatre and corporate work enabled us to provide a lighting rig which would provide the necessary breadth to light this panto-style production, yet simultaneously complement the existing static corporate rig.
In addition to the newly purchased Super Korrigan followspots, Point Source Productions also invested in a number of 1.2K Selecon Rama fresnels. The remainder of the kit list included Rainbow Pro 8” colour scrollers, Strand Alto 2K fresnels , ETC Source 4 575W & 750W profiles with a mix of 19°, 26°, 36° lenses, plus two 10° lens tubes to project onto the 400mm mirror balls, also from the Point Source stock.
As a trial ‘off-West End’ show, Menopause the Musical is the Shaw Theatre’s first long-running production. As such, it needed a West End approach to hire from us which would offer sensible pricing but with a high level of technical support as backup.
Hire Manager, Ian King explains, “We sent spares of every fixture to allow for the fact that the shows were at unorthodox times due to conference commitments. This gave the technical team the confidence to know they were covered quickly, whatever time of day it was. We were also available twenty-four hours a day to provide advice and emergency backup.”
This is a significant development for Point Source Productions in the area of West End musicals and we are looking forward to more to come.
Menopause the Musical continues to run in many venues across the USA and further afield (full details on www.menopausethemusical.com). The London production, directed by Kathryn Conte, stars Miquel Brown, Samantha Hughes, Su Pollard and Amanda Symonds and runs for 5 months from March 2007.
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