"Treasure Island" Sails with Nexeras

In a refreshingly spirited production of Capt. Murray Ross' adaptation of "Treasure Island," the theater department of the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs delighted audience members with an exciting evening filled with swashbuckling pirates and treasure.

For the UCCS performance, searching for treasure went beyond the stage as Lighting Designer James "Japhy" Weideman began to shape the lighting plot. Traditional fixtures were an option, but Weideman was interested in newer technology " so he decided to incorporate six Nexera wash lights.

Weideman's instincts paid off as he discovered that the lightweight, versatile units were the perfect pieces to complete the show.

"In the beginning of my design process, I needed to make a few positioning adjustments in order to accommodate some changes in scenery height," Weideman said. "At first I was reluctant to move them, not knowing how long the labor would take. However, the Nexeras were easy to reposition due to their compact and lightweight structure.

"A lighting designer should think of them simply as conventional lights with wonderful CMY color-mixing capabilities built inside. They truly require less fuss than conventional units. ... It's all in one unit, the way it should be."

The Nexera fixtures were hung to create a diagonal backlight system to achieve clean color washes across the deck while simultaneously sculpting the actors. Weideman found the units to be well-suited for shifting time-of-day atmospheres.

"For example, in one sequence the color is set in a saturated blue-green night at sea that slowly, over the course of a series of cues, shifts into a cool daylight blue, eventually ending in a bastard amber," he said.

Especially beautiful and convincing were the sunrise effects that he achieved by slowly adding no-color sidelight while shifting the Nexeras from daylight blue to light bastard amber.

"The Nexera units add a new layer of flexibility to theatrical lighting design. Thanks to John Fuller and Wybron for letting me test them," Weideman said. "I'll definitely request them for another production in the near future!"