ETC Selador Desire LEDs illuminate David Hare's The Judas Kiss

	The Judas Kiss, Duke of York's Theatre, London, UK, 2013. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Lighting designer Rick Fisher chose ETC's Selador Desire LED fixtures to help light the recent production of David Hare's The Judas Kiss at the Duke of York's Theatre, London. Set in 1895, Hare's play tells the dramatic true story of the betrayal, imprisonment, and downfall of famed playwright Oscar Wilde.

"For the kind of work I'm doing - a subtle piece with the lighting concentrating on moods, emotional states, and times of day -- I wanted lighting which doesn't draw attention to itself," says Fisher. "The Desire fixtures give a very nice, natural looking light, which was a pleasant surprise and a real advance." The best thing, from a lighting designer's point of view, Fisher explains, is that no one noticed the difference between the Desire LED and conventional fixtures in the hybrid lighting rig.

"I had been using conventionals on the show while it was on an initial five-week tour," says Fisher, "but I wanted the chance to do a bit more than color scrollers offered me." Fisher's colleagues recommended the Selador Desire, which has a seven-color mixing system.

"It was important that the color looked natural," he continues, "and that even if we used a wider than usual color choice, it didn't 'look' LED. I used the Desires mostly for the scripted sunset and then sunrise that happen throughout the second act, and the LED allowed me to be a bit more extreme. Previously, when we were on tour with conventional lights and scrollers, I didn't have such a wide range available. What impressed me with the Selador Desires is that they blended well with the conventionals on the show. We used over 50 ETC Source Four luminaires and only three tungsten moving lights."

The Selador Desire D60s, hired from ETC dealer White Light, also fit well into a tight space. As Fisher says: "There were very few places to put fixtures at the angle we needed for low sunlight, and I only had a very narrow gap to get light through, so the Selador Desires were great. I was able to use two units from a perch position to be able to continue the same light quality into the acting area."

"One of the nice things about the Seladors is that they don't move -- you just point them where you want the light to go. You get the color flexibility of a moving light, but without the additional complications -- in particular the space a mover takes to calibrate, which was not available. And these really are some of the first LED units I've seen where the quality of light is good enough to light a person."

That high quality of lighting was reinforced in a five-star review in The Times of London. Libby Purves wrote: "Let me say that the lighting (by Rick Fisher) is one of the many things that take this production, on the big stage, to the heights."