My lighting-design students and I are very excited as we wait in the side alley of the PrivateBank Theatre in Chicago. Our goal for the day is to get a firsthand look at what it takes to produce a smash Broadway hit. We were lucky enough to be invited to attend a day of technical rehearsals for “Hamilton,” the hugely successful Tony Award-winning musical currently running on Broadway.
Associate lighting designer Ryan O’Gara greets us at the backstage door. He takes us inside the theater, where we get a glimpse of the stage. We first notice that the main audience seating area is filled with “tech” tables, each loaded with computers and monitors. Each of these stations has a specific function. Some control the lighting and sound, one rotates the floor of the set between scenes, another cues the actors to enter the stage.
This is the morning “work call,” when all technical aspects of the show are fine-tuned before the afternoon rehearsals. To get a better sense of scale, we take a tour of the double-decker set. As we climb up and down multiple staircases from one side of the stage to the next, we see all of the lighting equipment that is embedded in the set. Although there are no audience members present yet, we notice how enormous the theater is with its cavernous mezzanine and balcony levels. As we look up into the huge lighting rig suspended over the stage, the students recognize familiar equipment – ellipsoidal spotlights, Fresnel and PAR can lights, and a huge array of moving lights – that we use in our own theaters in Urbana-Champaign.
After the work call, we wait in anticipation of the start of the technical rehearsal. This is when all of the individual elements of scene, costume, lighting and sound design come together as one cohesive unit with the performers.
The lights in the theater are slowly dimmed and the stage lights come to life, then the actors enter the stage in full costume while the set rotates to set the scene. The keyboard player begins a number, but is stopped by the director and choreographer so they can make a few adjustments.
We have been given headsets, which allow us to listen in on the many conversations under way. The technical staff talk about timing and about when to move the set and call the light cues. There are so many people talking on the headsets at once that some of the students begin to wonder how it all seems so effortless. The pace of talk is fast, but the demeanor is mostly cordial. We wonder why that is and then remember that most of the people working on this show have come from the Broadway production. Howell Binkley, the Tony Award-winning lighting designer for the show, brought his entire team to Chicago to maintain the integrity of the original New York show.
The rehearsal pauses, and Binkley joins us to explain how the lights are precisely focused and programmed into a sophisticated lighting-control system specifically designed for the theater industry. “Hamilton” uses the same techniques that the students are currently learning in our program. Visiting theatre professor Chris Wood and I shoot each other a look of pride and approval.
Once we are back on campus, I’m sure there will be much to discuss about a show of this magnitude and what it takes to produce and light a major musical. The students will surely remember the colors, the enormous number of lighting cues that had to be programmed into the lighting console, and the sheer number of people all working as a family to get it just right. After all, the producers hope “Hamilton” will run for many years here in Chicago.