Mary Poppins was quite the challenge for Cavalier Theatre. Lighting was not only renting lights for the show, but also took on the task of triggering some effects remotely from our light board. Our new ETC ColorSource 40AV board was certainly up to the task, but how would we make it all work. The show required rented lights for our backdrop, lasers for stars on the walls and above the heads of the audience, wireless lights for moving set pieces and of course some effects thrown in. We needed to have a working chimney (smoke machine, with red lights) and trigger a breaking table. Trial and error allowed us to eventually figure out the right ways to trigger the effects along with the normal light cues. Of course we had other issues to figure out (ground loop and power), requiring the rental of a new piece of gear called an Opto Isolater. Adding the Opto Isolater took care of the ground loop and splitting our backdrop lights power feeds took care of the power issue. Triggering the smoke machine was done on an independent channel mapped to a touchscreen button and a separate fader for the red glow. The table wouldn't work mapped to a independent channel and touchscreen button, so we had to map it to a fader instead. We had over 75 cues in the show and some manual fader work added to make things interesting. Not a big deal until you have to teach students how to run it all and then step back and let them go. But my team had just come off Shrek, where we had all of 5 days to learn the new light board and they were ready to tackle Mary Poppins. It was a great show!
