The Second City Takes Delivery of Strong Neeva LED Profile Lighting Systems

As the training ground for a long list of distinguished entertainment personalities, including John Belushi, Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Jason Sudeikis and others, The Second City is one of the world's greatest comedy theatres. In The Second City - one of two theatres at the company's home base in Chicago -- several new lighting fixtures were recently deployed, including six Neeva LED Profile lighting systems from Strong.

Kyle Anderson, stage manager and lighting designer for The Second City e.t.c., oversees a wide range of responsibilities, including many technical aspects of the organization's theatrical offerings. "The Second City e.t.c. is a cabaret-style house that seats approximately 198 people," he said. "Our space is very intimate, with the stage being raised less than 2' from the floor. Front-row patrons sit directly in front of the stage. We have a low ceiling and grid height, and the lighting pipes run at an angle of nearly 35 degrees relative to the stage itself, which makes even simple lighting tasks challenging. After evaluating numerous lighting options, we ultimately selected the six Strong Neeva LED Profile lights. As I understand, our six fixtures were among the first of the RGBA (red, green, blue, amber) models to roll off of Strong's production lines.

"I love the fact that, as an LED-based system, the Neeva is not as hot and, thus, physically uncomfortable for the performers as is frequently the case with other fixtures," Anderson continued. "These lights give us a great FOH wash and I really appreciate the fact that I can change colors without dealing with gels, etc. Before the Neevas arrived, I was handling FOH color with systems of 1,000W PARs. If I wanted more color, I had to use up huge amounts of my dimmers. If I wanted lots of color, I had to pump lots of heat just a few feet above the audience and, no matter what I wanted, I was replacing gels every few weeks. Now, I have brighter color, more saturated color, and an easier to control beam-all for a tiny fraction of the electricity, and with zero dimmers! With the Neevas, I can use the dimmers for other purposes. These lights provide considerable flexibility, not only on their own, but also to our legacy equipment."

The Strong Neeva LED light fixtures are currently used The Second City e.t.c.'s new hit show, Sky's the Limit (Weather Permitting). "One of our sketches, Questions, takes place halfway between Armageddon and a woman's imagination," he explained. "Being a sketch revue, the whole show takes place on one set. The Neevas were instrumental in developing a lighting vocabulary for this scene that worked out beautifully. The color mixing capabilities enabled me to create a landscape of slowly cycling, moody colors, which bleed gradually from the violence of the 'real world' to the calm reflection of the character's thoughts.

"The Neevas are working out even better than I'd hoped for," he added. "When I first began operating several of them in tandem, I couldn't believe how much light I got, how well the colors mixed and blended, and how much fun I could have building effects for the show. The two moments of the show that I'm most proud to have created wouldn't have been possible in our space without them. From this point forward, the Neevas will be central to all of my future designs at The Second City."