The Linfield theater program stole the show when it was awarded a $46,000 grant to purchase cutting-edge lighting and multimedia equipment.
“This grant may be the boost/kick-start our department has been waiting for and ready to take advantage of, because once we do, the quality and classiness of our productions will erupt, and everyone will want to ride the lava flow all the way down,” senior theater arts major Will DeBiccari said in an e-mail. “Answers that were once ‘no’ in production meetings are now without a doubt ‘yes.’”
The equipment will bring the department up-to-date into the theater industry’s latest technological advancements.
“The technology we’re going to obtain is really going to give us the opportunity to use projected images, still images and moving images in a really easily accessible way,” Technical Director and Sound Designer Robert Vaughn said. “[There are] tons of advances that are being made every year that if we don’t try to stay on top of all these things, our students will quickly find themselves being outdated.”
The grant will be used to acquire lighting instruments, three projectors, a software program called QLab and a computer with which to operate it.
Brenda DeVore Marshall, department chair and professor of theatre and communication arts, said the equipment will allow the program to incorporate multimedia, such as video footage, digitally-constructed slides, photos and projected documents, into its productions.
She said many contemporary playwrights are influenced by film and television so much so that they write scripts specifically for the incorporation of multimedia elements. The new equipment will allow shows to make quick digital transitions and scenery changes.
“Musicals for the most part have multiple settings, and we’re thinking that creatively we’ll be able to use the multimedia to help us create some of the settings, which would broaden our options of what musicals we can do,” Marshall said.
The new projectors are also more powerful than typical classroom projectors.
The theater program incorporated projections into its last production, “Dog Sees God.” But the projector used was borrowed from Electronic Media Services, and it was limited by its projection size and capability.
“You have to make sure [to] have a projector that has enough umph, enough lumens, to punch through that extra illumination that’s coming off of the stage instruments,” Tyrone Marshall, director of theatre and resident designer and professor of theatre arts, said. “I would like to get an image that fills the whole proscenium wall.”
The increased luminosity of the new projectors will prevent projected images from fading out when stage lights shine on them. The new projectors will also be able to throw an image farther than the EMS projectors, which will benefit the theater, where projected media needs to travel nearly 50 feet.
Theater program officials said that they hope to showcase these new elements in productions next year.
Besides benefits to the theater’s productions, the new technology will throw open doors in design education.
“It’s just another pencil in the pencil box, and as a designer, you want to use as many pencils and brushes [as you can],” Marshall said.
Learning to use the technology will also make students more attractive and marketable in the theater industry, Vaughn said.
“It’s great that a college theater program can keep up with professional theater companies,” senior theater arts major Jillian Haig said in an e-mail. “I am jealous I am graduating before being exposed to it. There will be hardly any boundaries of what can be accomplished in our black box theater.”
People who visit Marshall Theatre to watch shows will also benefit.
“I think one of the things in terms of students who come to see the plays, [this] will broaden their understanding of theatrical horizons,” Marshall said of the new equipment.
Kelley Hungerford
Managing editor Kelley Hungerford can be reached at [email protected]