Playing Now: Glory Ride

The new musical Glory Ride opened at London’s Charing Cross Theatre on April 28th.

Written by Todd Buchholz and Victoria Buchholz, directed and choreographed by Olivier-award winner Kelly Devine (Come From Away), designed by PJ McEvoy with lighting by Rob and performed by a wonderful cast, the show tells the true story of Italian Tour de France winner Gino Bartali and how he used his celebrity status to help rescue Jewish children from Italy during the second world war.

The show opened to great acclaim for all involved, and runs until July 29th - book your tickets now!

Glory Ride [link]
Photographer: Marc Brenner

Actors And Orchestra Together - EGBDF in Mumbai

Rob has just completed a short trip to Mumbai - his first visit to India - to work on the rarely-staged Tom Stoppard play Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. The show is rarely stage because it involves not just actors but a full orchestra performing the music written by André Previn - but here the forces of Mumbai’s National Centre for the Perfoming Arts and the Symphony Orchestra of India combined to bring the show to life.

Rob was once again working as associate lighting designer and lighting programmer with lighting designer Rick Fisher, with whom he has previously collaborated on projects around the world, with the pair both enjoying the re-union with the NCPA’s Head of Theatre and Film Bruce Guthrie, for whom they have both lit shows before. Alongside them were set designer Francis O’Connor, costume designer Pallavi Patel, sound designer Andy Collins, movement director Rachel D’Souza, music supervisor Matthew Scott and conductor Mikel Toms.

Rick and Rob received excellent support from the Mumbai-based assistant on the show, Akshay Khubchandani, who ensured everything required was available, up and working in the theatre as well as providing a wonderful host to this remarkable city.

As well as getting the show itself on, all involved took part in a workshop organised by the NCPA and stage manager Antonia Collins to introduce young people to the work required to get a show on - an event rapturously well received by those who attended it.

Such is the show’s success that it’s originally scheduled run has been extended by a week to give more people the chance to enjoy it.

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour Mumbai: [link]

Tree of Codes - Heading To Singapore

Rob is currently en-route to Singapore, for the next appearance of the acclaimed dance show Tree of Codes.

The show will play at the Esplanade Theatre on October 14th and 15th, as part of the da : ns festival 2022.

Tree of Codes Singapore: [link]
Gallery: [link]

Open - Finally! Carnival Magic

Rob is delighted to be able to announce that the big project he was occupied with - but couldn’t talk about - through much of 2019 and into 2020 before Covid came along and forced production to shut down, is now finally open, up and running: CARNIVAL MAGIC in Phuket, Thailand.

Billed as the ‘crowning jewel in night-time entertainment on the island of Phuket’ and describing itself as ‘the world’s first Thai carnival theme park’, the project is centred around a spectacular carnival show staged in a newly built theatre designed just for this shows, with an enormous, 70metre wide proscenium which then has massive wing spaces on either sides to house the enormous floats, some themselves almost 70m wide, which for the basis of the show.

Working alongside lighting designer John A Williams, Rob filled many roles on this production including ultimately programming the lighting for the rig of more than three hundred moving lights from Robe, Martin, GLP and others, including, for the technically minded, a remarkable 70m run of GLP X4-Bars as footlights. The show continues the relationship both have with the show’s producer Kittikorn Kewkacha from his earlier show, Phuket Fantasea, which is also now up and running again post-Covid, continuing a run that now extends to twenty-two years.

Carnival Magic is running now in Phuket, Thailand, with performances on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, alongside Phuket Fantasea which performs on Mondays and Fridays.

Carnival Magic: [link]

It's BACK - Tree of Codes, now in Helsinki

After a three-year Covid-enforced break, the acclaimed dance show Tree of Codes, which Rob created alongside choreographer Wayne McGregor, visual artist Olafur Eliasson and composer Jamie xx, is BACK!

The show is playing at the brand new Tanssin Talo - Dance House - in Helsinki, as part of the 2022 Helsinki Festival, with performance dates from August 12th-14th.

This is the first time the show has been seen since it’s run in Paris in mid-2019 - but now it is up and running again it will also be appearing in Singapore this autumn. Look out for it there.

As always, Rob is delighted and honoured to be part of this remarkable show, first created at the Manchester Festival in 2015, and delighted to be back amongst the wonderful team of people who get it up and running each time.

Tree of Codes Gallery: [link]
Helsinki Festival: [link]

Crazy For You - Previewing Now

Rob is delighted to have spent the last couple of weeks in Chichester, programming the lighting for their summer musical, Crazy For You.

The show marks a welcome return to in-person collaboration with lighting designer Ken Billington. The last time Rob worked with Ken, one of them was in London, the other was in New York and the production was in a different country altogether, the Japanese production of Waitress lit entirely remotely because of Coronavirus travel restrictions.

This time Ken, Rob and associate lighting designer Dale Driscoll, along with everyone else, have been together the same place, very well looked after by the wonderful Chichester crew and all revelling in the work of director-choreographer Susan Stroman, with whom Rob last worked on the National Theatre’s acclaimed production of Oklahoma! in London and New York.

Crazy For You is previewing now, with its press night on July 19th.

Crazy For You: [link]

Les Mis Reinvented

Rob and all involved are thrilled by the reaction to their new production of Les Misérables, and delighted to have been able to bring the show a whole new fresh, contemporary, dangerous look and feel, lifting it out of its traditional setting and landing it in a timeless, nameless place - a dark dystopian society that could be anywhere.

Credit is due to all involved with the show at Mountview, particularly production manager Davin Patrick, stage manager Natasha Guzel, DSM Anna Matthiesen, production electrician Billy Highfield, programmers/assistant lighting designers Alex Hannah and Tristan Teresczuk and all of the rest of the lighting team. They did excellent work on the most challenging of shows to the tightest of schedules. The result was a wonderful piece of theatre, and a fitting opening for Mountview’s Mack theatre.

Pictures: [link]

More Pictures: [link] [link]

Les Mis at WhatsOnStage: [link]

Reactions on Twitter: [link]

Photo: Marc Brenner

Drury Lane Reborn

Rob spent eighteen months stalking the spectacular, £60million refurbishment of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane so that he could tell the story of the spectacular re-birth of this remarkable theatre.

The story is out now, in this month’s edition of LSi magazine. You can read it online here: [link]