On September 24, 2014, at the Teatro Nuevo Alcalá, we had the extraordinary privilege of attending the first rehearsal of the musical “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”. The organization was kind enough to show us a preview of the play and the next day they gave us the small room of the theatre for a meeting with the lighting designer, Carlos Torrijos, a member of AAI.
Our president Juan Gómez-Cornejo Sánchez made the presentation and thanked the Teatro Nuevo Alcalá and the production team, in the person of Juanjo Rivero, for the splendid facilities they granted us for the realization of this 8th Encounter. He emphasized that we had been the first viewers of Priscilla. He then thanked the sponsors of the association, and moved on to the presentation of Carlos Torrijos. He presented it to us with a special emotion: a name like La Fábrica de Luz (The Light Factory) given to his company “What a beautiful name! shows what Carlos is. We were united by the same passion for the work of light”. Juan gave us a reference of Carlos’s long career, not only as a designer, but also as a technical manager and especially his work in electrical production for a large number of shows. With much affection he gave the floor: “I give you Carlitos… sorry about Carlitos”.
Carlos offered us an extraordinarily clear and structured presentation, neatly saving the difficulty that the complexity of the work to be treated entailed. First, after thanking the association and its directors, he told us about his career, which he divided into four stages: first, his departure to Madrid in search of opportunities, where he met Antonio, who proposed him to set up a circus in which Carlos put the lights, and there began his journey in the world of lighting. In what he considers his next stage, the dancer José Camborio proposes him to go with him on a tour of Italy, where he makes his first lighting and design. In the third stage the producer Juanjo Seoane, Luis Martinez calls him as a technician and enters the field of theater, he meets Juan Gómez-Cornejo and Josep Solbes with whom he begins to work and decidedly to learn: “You have to suckle the technical world, you have to take other designs and try to respect them as much as possible,” he tells us. And in the last stage, the Musical begins with Beauty and the Beast.
15 years ago, with what later became the multinational musical company Stage Entertainment, he worked as chief electrician, then as lighting supervisor and Production Electrician and then with some designs for this production company.
And Carlos is already talking about “Priscilla, the queen of the desert”. The musical, based on the 1994 film, which opened in Sydney in 2006. It was, he tells us, a strong impression for him when he saw that what the producer Juanjo Rivero was proposing was to light Priscilla. A musical of great format, for its costs, number of actors, costumes, even a scenography that forced to open the hole of a door so that it could enter. There was an original lighting design, then new designers were hired in each country. It came from Stockholm where the budget was lower, they wanted to revise the lights, to give another style because they had more means. He went with Rivero to Stockholm where they attended four performances, got in touch with the artists and their work, the scenery, the costumes. One advantage was that with the production already shot you can see a lot of things already done. On the other hand, there was the difficulty that it is not easy for them to accept new things. But Carlos is called as a designer and not as a light adapter, although there is a scenography and no detail can be changed. He showed us the image of the lighting plan and told us about the various constraints that had to be overcome: the problem of the truss of flights of the three “divas” and the first rod of lights, the excessive distance between second and fourth rod that made it difficult to cover the contra, hindrances between legs and streets of lights, the size of Priscilla, the bus, in relation to the stage space, the luminosity that gave the video supported by the 35.000 leds of the curtain-screen plus the bus, whose intensity had to be reduced due to the luminosity that it generated in a small scenic space such as the stage of the Teatro Alcala, the narrowness of the stage box to put a large format musical when it was originally conceived for comedy, the large number of scenographic changes and hanging objects, the interaction of the three cannons and the bridge of lights that forced to raise it, etc… He explained to us how the result of the design basically depended on these conditions, the theatre’s equipment and the production possibilities.
And then, when talking about the staging, Carlos pointed out the importance of the “electrical production”, that is, the making of the rental list, and the preparation of all that equipment so that it enters the theatre in perfect condition, ready to be hung. He gave us many details about this process and later about the assembly times that are impossible for me to relate in this space. I emphasize Carlos’ insistence on valuing the team that surrounds and supports the designer, especially in these cases of such large and complex assemblies: “The designer without his team is nobody. It is necessary to have the right tools and a team to support you, to collaborate”.
And just to say that the result we were able to enjoy, even ten days before the premiere, was: SPECTACULAR.
Pau Ferrer (A.A.I.)
Web musical : http://www.priscillaelmusical.es
Full video of the meeting recorded and edited by the students of CIFP Jose Luis Garci (AAI collaborating partner)
