Godspell Returns to Broadway with Pulsar

Godspell, the beloved 1971 musical from Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak, returned to Broadway last fall to rave reviews. The new show, spawned from a 2006 production at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, is directed by Daniel Goldstein, and opened in November at the Circle in the Square Theatre with a revamped score, youthful cast, and ingenious lighting design by David Weiner, whose two-decade resume includes recent Broadway productions such as The Normal Heart and Reasons to Be Pretty.

One of the challenges for Weiner was enhancing the context of the written word through the illumination. "In a musical like Godspell, the storytelling is a bit more abstract and not so literal because it's a very actor improvised creation," Weiner explains. "Also, because it's a musical, the lighting is there to help amplify the energy and electricity that the cast is putting out. If you watch a musical number in a rehearsal room and then watch the same exact thing that's been lit properly, I think you're going to find that the version under lights is a lot more exciting. The lighting adds another layer to the production."

Additionally, Weiner's lighting scheme incorporated the fixtures literally into the set. Working closely with lighting and control systems technical supervisor, Scott Carpenter, from PRG New Windsor, they conceived and built custom 2K Fresnels, PAR 64 Cans, and squirrel cage filament footlight fixtures that incorporated RGB LEDs internally. Because of the direct-view application, Tricolor LEDs were essential for the project. Weiner specified Pulsar ChromaHeart-MR16 and ChromaPoint fixtures for their diminutive size, versatility, and evenly blended color effects. The company says the result mimicked the appearance of the older lighting gear in keeping with the show's rustic design vibe and continuity, but offered contemporary color-changing options.

Approximately 18 2K Fresnels from the 1960s were hung from hemp ropes around the stage. Carpenter replaced the original lamp and socket with the ChromaHeart fixture mounted to a custom bracket and filling the lens with an incandescent glow. The PAR 64 lamps were modified by cutting a hole in the back, leaving the lens and reflector parts intact but replacing the filament and base with the ChromaHeart. In turn, the squirrel cage filament footlights were constructed using a purchased sheet metal shell, a custom Vacu-form bulb and etched acrylic rod created by the Art Department at PRG New Windsor, and the Pulsar ChromaPoint fixture. The ChromaPoint fixture was attached to the shells with the custom mounting brackets. The light traveled through the acrylic rod, illuminating the etching on the acrylic rod, for a fiber optic-like appearance with the Vacu-form bulb covering the acrylic rod to complete the look.

"The Pulsar fixtures offered us good, basic building blocks to create these tailored LED fixtures," Carpenter said, "without having to get into custom circuit design and control. Having Tricolor LEDs were essential for the project because they didn't need the additional space or optics to create an evenly blended color."

"Working with PRG to create these custom fixtures was fun," said Weiner, "and I've had a more than a few people comment on them as being a nice surprise during the show, the footlights especially. The Fresnels were the easiest to solve because all we did was stick the ChromaHeart in the Fresnel and close it up. The footlights were a bit more of a challenge. With their etched filaments inside, they appear to be lit with an incandescent light bulb -- you wouldn't even know they were LEDs until they start changing colors. The same goes for the PAR cans and Fresnels, and there's about 16 of each hanging all over the theatre. Once the actors break into song for the first time and really go for the gusto, those old theatre lights start to do things that they traditionally wouldn't be able to do like change colors, adding eye candy and direct color in the air. No matter where you sit in the space you have a direct front-on view of these lights, which are color-keyed to compositionally enhance the rest of the lighting. So if a number is dark blue with magenta highlights, the footlights may be magenta, the pars blue, and the Fresnels turquoise -- we're constantly smashing them around changing the colors to great effect."

"Godspell's set design is pretty static until the finale," summed Weiner. "Even though there aren't gigantic scene changes, there are still around 700 light cues. We were so pleased with the Pulsar fixtures in achieving our vision. They were simply awesome and pretty perfect for the job at hand."