THEATRE
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Hercules is visually and sonically striking from start to finish. Fisher went with a sound system akin to a live concert, while Croiter amped up the brightness
across four levels. According to Fisher, these renovations ‘created distinct acoustic zones’, presenting an obvious audio challenge. “It was a lot of trying to make a cohesive enough show without getting overly worried about it not being exactly the same, acoustically, between those spaces. There are a lot of fills and delays in that theatre.” Fisher chose Panther loudspeakers from Meyer Sound for their immersive, stadium-sized feel. “I’m a big fan of Meyer Sound, and they’d just come out with the Panther. Drury Lane is one of the biggest theatres in London, so I thought these might be appropriate for the show, with the scale of its sets,” he explains. “I prefer using a bigger speaker and running it at a lower level, rather than having a smaller speaker that’s working incredibly hard to keep up.” As well as a line array at the front, Fisher’s design also included a surround sound set-up. “It’s a combination of Meyer doing the main system, with EM Acoustics for surround and foldback,”
he says. Additionally, the cast wear head mics during performances. “That’s been a challenge – trying to keep it intelligible and at a level that’s big, but not loud,” Fisher admits. “At the end of the day, it’s still a show for kids. There are lots of conversations asking: is this too loud? Are we understanding that lyric? Is that being heard well enough?” Meanwhile, Croiter was also navigating Drury Lane’s existing lights. “With every show I do,” he begins, “no matter what it is, we work within the front-of-house structure. At Drury Lane, it was really good. There wasn’t a lot wanting.” Over the stage, “it’s an empty box,” Croiter continues, “so we can do whatever we want.” His design blended wash lights from German Light Products with ETC Lustrs ‘all over the place’, the PRG Ground Control Followspot and Zactrack systems for spotlights and an ETC Eos Console for system control. “There’s a lot of scenery in the show,” Croiter adds, “so the constraints become: how do we fit everything we want to
The live Hercules show represented a departure from the visual language of the original Disney film, while staying true to the source material
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