Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Boublil and Schönber’s Miss Saigon is touring Australia, giving audiences the chance to view what has been described as ‘one of the most successful musicals in the world’, and ‘seen by over 33 million people, in over 25 countries and played in 12 different languages’. Associate Lighting Designer Richard Pacholski and Sound Designer Peter Grubb explain how they each have contributed to their highly acclaimed representation of Saigon and Bangkok circa 1975.

Lighting Design
Associate Lighting Designer, Richard Pacholski, began his career in lighting at the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust and toured with the Australian Ballet. He then joined Cameron Mackintosh Australia in late eighties and over the next decade toured extensively on their productions of Les Miserables, Rent, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Five Guys Named Moe, and Miss Saigon. Pacholski now operates his own company r2 design + production, and works freelance for productions staged all over the world. He explains to DGDN how he produced the lighting design for the new production of Miss Saigon in Australia after being handed the creative reins by original lighting designer David Hersey.

DGDN: You’ve worked on a number of significant productions in (especially) Australia and South Korea. It must be a huge job to design and organise the lighting for such big shows. What does the process involve and how do you go about beginning such a task?

Pacholski: Most of my work requires me to take the role of associate designer of these shows. The original lighting designer - in Miss Saigon’s case David Hersey from London ¬- does his work on the first few productions and then hands things over to an associate. David would then move on to light other shows while associates carry on with the previous show. This needs to happen as the one show might multiply across the world quickly and he cannot be everywhere.
It is a huge undertaking to design and organise a show like Miss Saigon. A large amount of time is consumed in the pre-production period before we even set foot on stage. Then it’s a long haul once we are in the theatre. 14-hour days are the norm and days off are rare.

The process normally starts with much collaboration between lighting designer, director and set designer and often the producer as well. These meetings will normally give the show its direction in the form of scene structure, a set design, and the beginnings of a lighting design. Following from that, a set design might get signed off on and that then gives the lighting designer a clearer set of constraints to work within. The lighting designer would then draw up a design based on types of lights and their placement in the theatre. Then comes the creation of a cue synopsis, which is a written guide to cue points and “looks” of the lighting. The designer normally builds on this process by observing rehearsals of the production with the director. From the final design, a list of equipment is sourced and into the theatre we go. Once rigged, we then focus each light individually and then start lighting scene by scene. Each scene consists of a series of cues or “looks” which we store in a computerised lighting console. Next, the cast arrive and rehearsals start onstage. We continue to use this time to build on the all the cues. All this continues until 2 minutes before opening night when we all nervously sit and hope all looks good and nothing goes wrong!

DGDN: Of the members in the crew, who would you work most closely with in terms of direction? When does the lighting aspect fit within the whole process?

Pacholski: Well, in terms of direction, the director is the most important person on the team without doubt. You need to converse constantly with him in terms of the style and look of the show. Other people in the crew whom are important to work with are the Technical Director and the Head Electrician, so [that] I can get what I want.

DGDN: For this particular production of Miss Saigon, which is set in both Saigon (Vietnam) and Bangkok (Thailand), what aspects come into play when designing the lighting needs? What sort of effects did you design to convey the different physical and cultural aspects of these cities?

Pacholski: The aspects that come into play with lighting this production are a feel of the location, whether that’s based on landscape, elements of the environment or just that “feel” you get from being somewhere different. Somehow you need to help convey that. That might be through the angle of the lighting, the colors you use, or special lighting effects. The array of lights on the market now is vast and you choose each one based on its features. By using those features you create that feel. For the Bangkok scenes for instance we recreate a sleazy street scene: lots of color, shafts of light, smoke, festoons, [and] lit-up sign boxes. Other times it might be an intimate indoor scene, [with] low light levels, warm skin tones [and] maybe a slow sunrise in the background.

DGDN: As an overall effect, what sorts of features need to be considered in terms of lighting?

Pacholski: The most important effect or feel, is to convey to the audience the emotion of the scene: the combination of actors, set, costumes, music & lighting all add to that. For some scenes the lighting might have the strongest influence on the emotion, at others times it might be another department, but we all combine to take the audience there.

DGDN: What sorts of budgeting requirements need to be considered for a commercial production such as Miss Saigon?

Pacholski: Budget plays a huge role these days in commercial productions like Miss Saigon. It’s an expensive show to stage and it takes a successful tour for it to be become financially viable. The show has a large cast & crew, lots of scenery and costumes and many trucks to move from city to city. Not only do we need to get the lighting equipment on budget, we also need to tour efficiently. That might be in the way we pack the equipment and how quickly we can move and set up in a new city. Any wasted time means wasted money.

DGDN: How does Miss Saigon compare to other productions you have worked on in terms of difficulty?

Pacholski: This one is complicated as the mood and location shifts many times during the whole show. We need a large mixed amount of lighting tools to deal with it. We have vast array of quite different fixtures in the lighting rig. The workhorses of the rig are the automated lights and each type we use has quite different features. This helps give us a large array of ways to light a scene: it may be the look of the beam of light, what we can do with that beam, the saturation of the color in the beam, and the effect we can introduce to the beam. All the different types combine to create the lighting for a scene.

Sound Design
Peter Grubb is one of a select few of sound designers internationally who are commissioned to provide sound designs for productions with the Cameron Mackintosh Organisation, the most recent of which is the Australian production of Miss Saigon. He joined System Sound as an operator in 1981, and now as Sound Supervisor for the company his credits include We Will Rock You, Mamma Mia!, Cats, Les Miserables, Rent, and the original Sydney production of Miss Saigon in 1995. In 2001 Grubb received the Victorian Green Room Association’s Award for Technical Achievement. He tells DGDN how he meets the challenges of designing sound for a touring production such as Miss Saigon.

DGDN: You have designed the sound for touring productions around the USA, as well as productions in Japan, South Africa, Beirut, Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, New Zealand and Australia. What does sound design entail and how does the process begin?

Grubb: To me, the first and most important area of a sound design for musical theatre is to make the vocal quality as natural as possible so that the audience does not notice the sound system. I want them to feel that all voice is coming from the performer; with the amount of “live” voice heard, the equalisation and balance of the speakers must be spot on! In a venue of over two thousand seats with speakers placed at least 6 metres from centre stage this can be quite a juggle.

Next I will look at how best to place speakers to enable an even coverage of the entire theatre. This must be in conjunction with the set designers to ensure the required “look” of the show is maintained.

With most productions I will attend meetings with the Director, Musical Director, Producers and at times Writers to discuss aspects of the piece that will include cast size, orchestra size, sound effects and style of the piece. This will enable me to provide a system with enough power and coverage for the job.

DGDN: What does ‘sound’ incorporate, and when is ‘sound’ taken into account in the overall scheme of putting on a production?

Grubb: Very early on in the design process I will spend time with the set designers to try and incorporate the main speaker and effects speaker systems into the Proscenium design elements. This enables us to “hide” speakers, [which is] something I will always attempt. I personally prefer not to have the speakers in view for the audience; I like the idea of them looking at the set and the performers, not a bunch of speakers and lights!

DGDN: What is involved in the process of designing sound for a production such as Miss Saigon? What sorts of factors need to be taken into consideration?

Grubb: The main difference for Miss Saigon is that there is a huge percussion set-up with lots of very loud Asian cymbals and gongs. Because these instruments need to be played hard to get their full sound they can be deafening to [the players] themselves, other orchestra members and the audience. For this reason we have placed them under the stage and carefully placed microphones on each instrument. The players [even] wear protective headphones!

We also spend a lot of time placing sound effects speakers in the auditorium for Miss Saigon’s famous helicopter scene. These speakers must be placed and programmed to give the audience the feel of a Huey flying in low over their heads. Actually one of the helicopter sound effects opens the show.

DGDN: How are you affected by budgeting requirements for a production of this kind?

Grubb: With any large scale production you could really go over the top with the sound system, but alas there are always budget constraints. Too big a system also means that it can be too slow to set up and pack down. One big issue with budgets is the number and quality of performer radio microphone system we use. As we are always attempting [to have] perfect sound and every line as clear as possible we often use over a quarter of the budget on these items.

DGDN: Are there different sound requirements for different venues? How is this considered when undertaking a touring production such as Miss Saigon?

Grubb: With the different size venues we will perform in during the Saigon tour consideration must be given to the number of speakers used and their placement, which at times can lead to hot debate between the sound, lighting and set departments for the best positions. Luckily the team we have on Miss Saigon are all good friends.

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Filed under: DG magazine 127