Broadway’s Dance of the Vampires

“For every pit of darkness, there is a light so purely divine”, states the epitaph to a larger than life Broadway experiment called Dance of the Vampires. And for the new musical at the Minskoff Theatre, that light had a Martin shine to it.

Loosely based on Roman Polanski´s 1967 horror movie spoof, The Fearless Vampire Killers, and starring onetime Phantom of the Opera star Michael Crawford, the current production is a comical piece that features elaborate scenery and a spectacular lighting design by Broadway lighting veteran Ken Billington.

Arriving on Broadway after successful runs in Austria and Germany, the extravagant, flashy show opened on December 9. Packed full of ecstatic love duets, unbridled dancing and energetic musical numbers, all amid a mystical Transylvanian atmosphere, lighting plays a special role as both musical support and mood-generating medium.

The lighting is very well designed, and very energetic, befitting the “wow” intentions of the play’s producers. Ken uses many of the newest generation automated lighting fixtures to achieve the desired effect, and to set the mood, including 18 MAC 2000 Profile and 15 MAC 2000 Performance in virtually every scene from a special-effects laden entrance to the final curtain. For example, in one scene Ken uses the MAC 2000 Performance’s gobo animation wheel to project cloud effects, then uses the 4-blade framing system to shutter around the mountains.

Ken, who has incorporated intelligent lighting into his designs as long as it’s been around (in fact, he was the first to use automated lighting on the Broadway show Grind in 1983), has over 80 Broadway and 50 Off-Broadway productions to his credit.