Gearhouse Splitbeam is a long-term professional Theatre equipment rental company
which, according to its Managing Director Alistair Kilbee, prides itself on being one
of only a handful of true theatre lighting specialists able to supply the requirements
of international touring productions from West End, Broadway or anywhere else in
the world.

As such, the company goes out of its way to ensure that they meet or exceed the
service delivery expectations of each of their clients. So when there was an
element they were unable to supply on the technical rider for the Pieter Toerien
/Hazel Feldman version of Annie earlier this year, the company moved to purchase
the missing stockholding for the show without missing a beat.

“The RFP for the supply of lighting came in in March this year, so we had a bit of
time to ensure that we could fully meet the requirement’ says Alistair Kilbee,
Managing Director at Gearhouse Splitbeam. “The rider specification is an exact
duplicate of the UK tour design by Lighting Designer Ben Cracknell. While the
touring team were happy to substitute VL3500 for the Mac Viper Performances; the
bank of ETC Source 4 Revolutions for FOH front light and side light on the booms
are an integral part of the design.

“Annie is a true musical classic – a part of the canon of theatre productions’ he
says “and likewise, the ETC Source Four Revolution with its tungsten lamp,
embodies all that is best in classic Theatrical lighting. We absolutely understood
that this was the correct fixture for this particular show. As a matter of fact, the
Revolution is the fixture of choice for many acclaimed Lighting designers because of
the Tungsten source and its versatility and because of these specific attributes, it is
not readily substituted.’

Needless to say, the Splitbeam team was delighted to take delivery of the new
product on 8th September. “This acquisition fills a key area that we feel has been
lacking. ETC Revolutions are a standard requirement on Lighting Specifications for
Musicals and Theatre productions internationally and are widely used on Theatrical
stages and touring productions across the globe. Having these units on Annie means
that there is no need to rig dozens of ETC Source 4 to achieve the requisite specials
and general cover and the colour-changing facility further reduces the need for
fixtures.

Together with the existing stockholding, we now have sufficient ETC Revolution
fixtures to replace and entire generic Front of House rig and we will be able to
supply more theatre jobs with less fixture substitutions going forward’ concludes
Alistair.

Annie runs in Johannesburg the TEATRO at Montecasino: 12 October 2016 to 27
November 2016 and in Cape Town at the ARTSCAPE Opera: 02 December 2016 to 8
January 2017. Splitbeam will be providing all the Lighting, Audio and Rigging for the
show

By Robyn D’Alessandro