Illinois High School Theatre Fest
January 2010 Bone Student Center
Illinois State University
DesignLab Chicago premiers the traveling light lab.
For two days, DesignLab worked in partnership with many manufacturers to bring the students at the Illinois High School Theatre Fest a wide array of information.
Students were presented information on:
- Power Distribution - LEX Products
- Color Mixing Theory - DesignLab
- Theatrical Fabrics - I.Weiss
- Programming for Automated Fixtures - DesignLab and ETC
- ION console training - ETC
- Wireless DMX - City Theatrical
- Large Format Printing for Theatrical Applications - Britten Banners
DesignLab Chicago has supported the Illinois High School Theatre Festival as an active participant, exhibiter and Tech Olympics sponsor for over 20 years. But this year is special. Because of Festival 2010’s subtitle of ”Master Class”, Larry Schoeneman, Designlab’s President decided to really give the participating 2500 students from 155 schools something special – a fully equipped light lab for use in teaching classes throughout the festival weekend.
The structure is 22’ square, 14’ tall and includes a lighting rig of conventional, automated and LED fixtures, dimming, an ETC Ion console for control and LCD projector and integrated screens.
Classes covered Wireless DMX, Theatrical Draperies, Large-Format Printed Images, Power Distribution, Ion Console training and Automated Lighting Fixture Programming Concepts. Several manufacturers provided Master Class teachers including: Britten Banner, City Theatrical, Electronic Theatre Controls, I. Weiss and Lex Products.
Mr. Schoeneman said that: “Most years each participating vendor just teaches one class. This year we thought that we’d step up to the plate and show the kids technologies that they might not get to see otherwise and to teach them how to use equipment that they might otherwise not know about. It’s always satisfying to be surrounded by thousands of kids who are excited about putting shows up and doing theatre.”
Karen Hall, Festival Executive Director and Theatre Instructor at Maine East High School felt that “…the Designlab Light Lab was an excellent addition to the Festival and provided our students and sponsors a terrific opportunity for hands -on training with some of today's most cutting edge technology"
All of the classes were well attended and both teachers and students had a great time.