For the March world premiere of “One of the Good Ones” at the Pasadena Playhouse in Southern California, lighting designer Jaymi Lee Smith turned to Elation’s new Proteus Odeon LED profile fixture to fulfill several lighting roles. The Odeon, a full-featured 30,000-lumen moving head that houses a variable CRI LED engine, allowed Smith to find the best blend of intensity and color accuracy to accurately form the onstage lighting while energizing the theater with full-on effects after the final curtain.
Pasadena Playhouse - A History of Excellence
Founded in 1917, Pasadena Playhouse, which was distinguished as the official State Theater of California and honored with the 2023 Regional Theatre Tony Award, stands as one of the nation’s most prolific theaters, having staged thousands of original productions. One of those original plays, “One of the Good Ones,” which ran from March 13 to April 7, is a new comedy from Gloria Calderón Kellett that explores racial and generational differences while laying bare our biases and preconceptions in a witty yet heartfelt story.
Meeting Lighting Needs
Award-winning lighting designer Jaymi Lee Smith has designed at some of America’s most prestigious theaters over the last 30 years, including the Pasadena Playhouse, and highlights a couple of special lighting needs for “One of the Good Ones.”
“The production is a realistic comedy. The scenic designer, Tanya Orellana, created a stunning modern house that perfectly reflected the rich history of California’s Mexican roots and displayed the socioeconomic class of the family that lived there. While design as a whole needed to gently support this story and not bring conscious attention to itself, I still wanted the lighting design to help play a character within the play.”
Smith continued, “There were moments when the light needed to match the excited energy on stage, but other moments when the lighting needed to help create tension. These moods needed to be supported within the house but also from the exterior of the home,” she stated. “I required a strong sunlight source that could change nuanced color, spread wide enough to cover the windows as a single source, as well as pack a good punch. I also needed quiet fixtures for specials and pick-ups that could blend in well with the rest of the rig.”
Since 2007, Jaymi has held the Professor of Lighting Design position at the University of California, Irvine, where she also serves as Associate Dean for Student Success. One of her former students, Nick Saiki, a Product Application and Customer Experience Specialist at Elation, previewed the Proteus Odeon for her at the LDI show in December when she was looking for an advanced framing fixture to use on several other theatre projects. Although the “One of the Good Ones” project was not on her schedule then, it would soon be and ultimately presented an ideal opportunity to trial the fixture for future use in future productions.
Dressing the Stage
For “One of the Good Ones,” Smith had six Odeon fixtures at her disposal, three used for an upstage window wall with one unit on a ladder offstage left for the main architectural window and front door, plus two units on a downstage truss over the audience used for pick-ups. The Odeon’s internal 4-blade framing system was a great benefit in sculpting the beam, the designer said, keeping light where it needed to be and avoiding light spill. “The framing system worked great,” Smith said. “Besides framing the windows in back, we also needed to ensure that light stayed off of a cyc that ran very close to the main window and door stage left. The set also had two different ceiling overhangs, and for most of my pickups, we used the framing structure to cut off those pieces.”
TruTone
Other features of the Proteus Odeon include a CMY color mixing system with CTO color correction, a 5.5° to 50° zoom, and a comprehensive package of effects. Its 850W variable CRI LED engine, called TruTone, is unique and is the industry's first innovation in color fidelity. The system allows CRI adjustments from CRI 70 to 93 and lets designers find the best lighting intensity and color accuracy blend. TruTone also enables the Odeon to work better with lighting console color pickers, producing the desired hue and saturation more accurately.
For a designer who pays special attention to color and composition, Smith found the TruTone CRI a helpful system. “I wanted good color rendering, especially to mimic sunlight and blend in with the incandescent sources I had,” she said, noting that she used the variable CRI in pickups and the stage left window unit. “I was also very happy with using the variable CTO and how they blended in with them, and the output was fantastic.” Smith also commended their quiet performance, which is a must for any professional theater setting.
Saiki lauded the TruTone system and said it incorporates features tailored to the theatrical market's unique needs. “With the adjustable fidelity engine, you get to choose how a color appears,” he commented. “With reds and magentas, the 90 CRI has more red content and provides a deeper and richer color. With some greens, the 70 CRI lends itself to a more stark color. You don’t have to choose high-output or high-fidelity; you get both options in one light.”
Dual Role
The Odeon can play a dual role in a single show, as a high CRI light in one scene and an effect light with high output in the next, a flexibility that was on display at the end of the play when Smith had an opportunity to delve deeper into the Odeon’s feature set for a post curtain call moment. Here, the designer put the fixtures into “full dance party mode,” repositioning them and unveiling more of the full effects package of gobos, color, prisms, etc.
The world premiere of “One of the Good Ones” has been universally praised by critics as a triumph and a play that is certainly around to stay. Smith concluded that the Proteus Odeon fixtures were a massive help throughout the performance, delivering consistent performance in virtually every cue.
About Elation
At Elation, we represent the elite in the lighting industry. We design and manufacture a comprehensive range of best-in-class entertainment lighting products valued by production/rental houses and lighting designers worldwide. Our dedication to extraordinary quality and creative solutions has established us as the go-to choice for professionals. With a storied legacy of brilliance, our influence extends from iconic stages to cutting-edge studios across the globe. We also offer an advanced line of lighting control products through Obsidian Control Systems and a full range of dependable specialty effects called Magmatic. We invite you to look at www.elationlighting.com and book a demo today for the Proteus Odeon.
“One of the Good Ones” Design Team
- Jaymi Lee Smith: Lighting Designer
- Vsev Krawczeniuk: Master Electrician
- Keannak Parvaz: Lighting Programmer
- Kassia Curl: Assistant Lighting Designer
Photo Credits
- Photo 1: Keannak Parvaz
- Photo 2: Jeff Lorch
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