PRG's Scenic and Lighting Innovations on MJ: The Musical

	MJ: The Musical. Photo: Matthew Murphy

MJ: The Musical, now playing at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre, is centered around the making of Michael Jackson's 1992 Dangerous World Tour. PRG has provided the scenic, lighting, and automation for the show.

Scenic designer Derek McLane, who drew inspiration from Jackson' stage shows and videos, says creating the scenic design was intimidating because of the pressure to capture Michael's showmanship, ambition, and imagination: "I was aware I had a standard to live up to and had to deliver some big moments that were worthy of Michael and his fans."

McLane's design places the show in the tour's rehearsal room, which takes up the entire stage. At stage right and stage left are 30'-tall and 4'-wide window walls that pivot to open and close, allowing actors and set pieces to move on and offstage. An upstage wall of windows, 20' high and 27 wide, splits in the center to move on- and offstage on an automated track, completing the industrial warehouse feel. McLane refers to these walls as the "engine" of the set. As the plot unfolds, the audience is transported to other locations through flashbacks before returning to the rehearsal room. PRG's proprietary Stage Command System allows the walls to move fluidly into place in synchronized, no small feat considering their size and weight.

"While the rehearsal room looks like a realistic brick-and-metal industrial space, in fact it has to do all this magic," McLane says. "PRG did such a good job of building all this magic in there so what happens, happens seamlessly. The automation is really good and reliable, and when teching a show, PRG's automation provides the ability to cue it in a way that is quick and subtle, and with just the right speeds and acceleration/deceleration which is very important."

When it came to finding the right material, thickness, and treatment for these window walls, PRG undertook a huge amount of research.

"We wanted to use Lexan for less distortion, but it didn't work well as a projection surface, so we ended up using real glass," says Mark Peterson, PRG general manager, sales and business development. "We went through a painstaking but very successful process of collaborating with the different departments -- scenic, lighting, projection -- to determine what would work best. We wanted the windows to look clear, like real windows, but they had to be reflective for projection and transmissive for lighting. Once we landed on the material, the next step was determining the level of transparency that would reduce glare from surrounding lights but had enough texture for rear projection. Implementing this window treatment was a challenge as well since it had to be applied by hand and be uniform across all the windowpanes."

For lighting designer Natasha Katz, the rehearsal room walls provided a large canvas. "There are as many lights offstage as there are onstage to light those windows," she says. "There are two moving lights behind each of the 18 panes of window and a projection screen sits behind the upstage window wall. The frost treatment allows the windows upstage and on the sides of stage to take color really well."

The room's lighting is very naturalistic -- lights shining through the windows change hues to indicate the time of day, as the sun rises and sets. "What makes the show so special for me is that it is reality-based but also memory-based. It is our version of what we think his memory might be," Katz says. "As we go into the memories, it becomes a very saturated, colored world. The windows, which are extremely present, become very colorful and the LED wall upstage does a similar thing that the side windows are doing.

"There are a lot of lights built into the scenery, so Derek and I collaborated on that, which was exciting," Katz continues. "Fred Gallo [president, PRG Scenic] engineered much of how we were able to hide lights in the set, which was an extremely difficult job. Also, the side walls have lights in them -- there is City Theatrical's QolorFLEX NuNeon and we also have Calesco lights that we had to make room for. It was an extraordinary task."

The musical has a significant mirror motif. Actors roll in large, 3.5'-wide by 8'-tall mirror panels, seven in all, which can be used in varying configurations. The reverse side of the panels provides scenic treatments for locations like Jackson's childhood bedroom or the Motown recording studio. The panels, which are quite heavy, are moved often (and quickly). PRG had to ensure they could withstand heavy use. Like the side window walls, QolorFLEX NuNeon is installed in many of the set pieces, including four of the mirror panels.

"Used mostly in musical numbers, the NuNeon helps to change a space from realism into something more heightened -- into 'show business' moments -- with just a flick of a switch," McLane says. "The great advantage is that we can transform a piece of scenery, without having to move anything. It works really well and is embedded in a lot of the architecture of the set."

For the musical number "They Don't Care About Us," McLane envisioned shattered mirror pieces in the air to capture the stress that Jackson is feeling in the scene. PRG created two intricate and delicate metal frames to hold 160 mirror shards made of Lexan. The frames, which are on two separate automated traveler tracks, are minimal, to make it appear that the shards are floating (see photo).

With over 400 fixtures, MJ: The Musical is one of the larger lighting rigs on Broadway. It is also PRG's first musical using the GLP Impression FR10. "This fixture, with its row of ten 60W RGBW sources creates an automated vertical wall of light reminiscent of the once-popular Digital Light Curtain," says Josh Karp, PRG account executive.

"The FR10s look like they come from another era -- they feel old-fashioned but they can move -- so we use them to show we are in a theatre or during one of Michael's concerts," Katz says. "Also, we made a conscious effort not to see any of the lighting equipment so it would feel like it was 1992."

PRG also provided a Multiverse wireless DMX system from City Theatrical, one of the first for a Broadway musical. "Using wireless DMX means that we don't have to run control cable to the lights, and we aren't unplugging/replugging to reposition lights as we move through the rehearsal process," says Michael Dodge, PRG's head of lighting and technical infrastructure. "City Theatrical's Multiverse system allows large lighting systems to use wireless control without producing radio energy that could disrupt other wireless systems in the venue."

Many will remember Jackson's iconic entrance at the opening of the Dangerous Tour, where he appeared to be catapulted into view from under the stage. This was the first use of the "toaster," the automation effect now commonly used in theatre, TV, and concerts. To recreate this moment in MJ, PRG built a toaster lift with multiple interlocking components which, in Stage Command, provide a go/no go safety check prior to executing cues.

"This unit has four effects integrated into it: the toaster, the rotation, the trap door, and the shroud. The shroud raises the lift nice inches after the actor is in it to close off pinch points between the lift frame and upper trap door," says Alexandra Paull, PRG scenic project manager. "The interlocks are a critical component and a great example of how PRG's automation system provides safety and reliability, without compromising the performance needs."

About lighting this "wow" moment, Katz says, "When he comes up out of the toaster, there is a ripple effect...concentric circles of light that make it feel like he has rippled the moment out to the entire audience."

"I am really happy with the look of the show," Katz says. "All the designers and the director worked hand in glove. Derek's set is extraordinary. You feel so solidly in the rehearsal room and then suddenly you are taken back 30 years. The scenery and Peter's projection go hand in hand, the music and lights too. The lights are tied to what is happening musically. If there is a key change, the lights change. There is a light cued with every beat. Everything worked absolutely perfectly."

McLane echos Katz's sentiments about the collaborative nature of the team. "I had such a good time working on this. Everyone -- managers, carpenters, painters -- was so devoted to making this great. It was a long process because we started on it before the pandemic, but it was a great experience."

"PRG did an amazing job," Katz continues. "They understand they are in the service business and that is absolutely what they do. PRG understands the inner workings of how a lighting designer thinks, and they never say no."