Rob is delighted to be back in Japan - and back for real, not just virtually! - where he is re-mounting the musical Billy Elliot for its 2024 season.
Rob has a long association with this show, back to the 2011 US Tour; he has since re-created Rick Fisher’s design in Holland, for the UK tour and in Japan and Korea, as well as moving the original London production to a new lighting control system along the way.
The Japanese production first appeared in 2017; it was re-mounted in 2020, but in the height of the Covid travel restrictions that was one of the three productions Rob worked on remotely from London, alongside Waitress (also in Japan) and Billy Elliot in Seoul.
This new production, in a new theatre - Tokyo’s Brilliant Hall in Ikebukuru - continues the gentle evolution and upgrading of the rig, this time replacing the ETC Revolutions with Martin Encore fixtures. The big Vari-Lite VL3500s and VL3000 Washes that have been part of the show since it began remain in place, however; the rig is supplied by PRG.
The Billy Tokyo lighting team includes a number of old friends from previous productions in Japan, including Mata Hari and Waitress, led by Yuta Watanabe, with Sonoko Ishii interpreting.
Billy Elliot previews in Tokyo from July 27th, and opens on August 2nd; it will also play a season in Osaka later in the year.
(Billy Elliot is also the subject of the last interview, with the lighting team that made and now re-makes the show, in the new book Theatre Lighting Design: Conversations on the Art, Craft and Life, to be published by Methuen-Bloomsbury on July 25th but available to pre-order now!)