London’s Playhouse Theatre has been spectacularly transformed into the Kit Kat Club for an immersive, mesmerising new production of Cabaret, where Lighting Designer Isabella Byrd has taken the opportunity to incorporate the brand new Martin MAC Ultra into her Olivier Award nominated design.
“The MAC Ultras are the literal punchy centre of the in-the-round Cabaret light plot.” explained Byrd. “They often playing solo in cues, and work in tandem with the Zactrack spotting system. Their clean colour mixing and speedy response enabled the design to gracefully tip the colour story— from a welcoming warmth, and later smash in with a just-right terrifying white. A perfect big sister to the many Encores in the rig.”
“Truthfully, we were a bit worried they might be sluggish as automated spot lights,” she continued: “but they really proved they were up for the task, and landed in the sweet spots, along the plots ‘equator’.”
The MAC Ultra Performance features Martin’s all-new 1150 W, 6000 K proprietary LED light engine, pushing an incredible 46,500 lumens in projection across the zoom range. The MAC Ultra also features a next-generation framing system, high definition optics and astoundingly low noise levels.
In conclusion, Byrd confirmed: “I’m really looking forward to using them again, where I can explore the next layer of texture and movement effects.”
The lighting team for the production includes associate LD Rob Casey, associate LD Lucía Sánchez Roldán, assistant LDs Charly Dunford and Tom Turner, programmer Miguel Figueiredo, and project manager Matt Roper.
Co-produced by ATG and Underbelly, Cabaret is playing at the Kit Kat Club at The Playhouse Theatre now.