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Royal Shakespeare Company chooses Ayrton
The Stratford-upon-Avon based Royal Shakespeare Company’s main house, the 1018-seat Royal Shakespeare Theatre, underwent a rebuild and refurbishment between 2007-2010, and its smaller Swan Theatre (469 capacity) has reopened in April 2023 after a year-long post-pandemic refurbishment.
Both houses have had Ayrton fixtures installed for the first time, replacing failing lighting stock with Ayrton Diablo and Eurus fixtures specified by the RSC head of lighting, Kevin Sleep. “Those most urgently in need of replacement were some of the moving heads in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre which we replaced with nine Ayrton Eurus S in May 2022”, explains Sleep.
Sleep was familiar with Ayrton from his previous position as head of lighting at the English National Opera in London, having thoroughly researched the range with the aid of Paul Roughton of Stage Electrics. “Pre-pandemic, the RSC team had also looked at the Ayrton range as possible options”, he says. “We contacted Paul who arranged further demos at the RSC, and we all agreed that, in comparisons with other manufacturers, Ayrton had the edge for our purposes.”
A second tranche of investment came in March 2023, focusing on the Swan Theatre: “As the Swan work was underway, we looked next at what could be achieved with available budgets. A priority was to replace our 100+ noisy, elderly colour scrollers with something that would give a wider a range of design opportunities, and as flexible a rig as possible”, says Sleep.
“We therefore chose to increase the number of moving heads and purchased fifteen Eurus TC (True Colour) and eight of the smaller siblings, Diablo TC, as dedicated Swan fixtures”, he continues. “These are now the mainstay of the Swan’s movers and are rigged in optimum positions as front, side, back and top light.” The Eurus TC fixtures are hung on the overhead truss bars. Both Eurus and Diablo are run on Quiet Mode.
With money still left in the budget, the lighting team then invested in a further six Eurus TC fixtures for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. “We’ve received excellent service from Stage Electrics and Ambersphere (Ayrton’s exclusive distributor in the UK), and Briony Berning has been our very knowledgeable and helpful point of contact at Ambersphere”, adds Sleep.
Pictured: RSC’s “Richard III” and “Cymbeline” productions; lighting design by Matt Daw. (Photos: Royal Shakespeare Company/Ellie Kurttz)
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