White Light’s increasingly-popular Installation team have recently provided another school with a comprehensive lighting installation and facilities for their newly created Drama Studio. The Richard Challoner School in New Malden has created its new facility by converting a former gymnasium to provide a flexible and intimate Studio that can be used either as a studio space or, at the push of a button to bring out the electrically-powered retractable seating, as a Studio Theatre.
White Light were closely involved with the project from the beginning, White Light’s Roger Hennigan liaising with the school’s Head of Drama, Neil Zoladkiewicz to work out the most efficient use of the school’s budget to provide the most flexible and useful set of facilities. “White Light suggested and advised on options, showing a keen understanding of the educational requirements of the new studio as well as the need to create an exciting new performance space,” Zoladkiewicz notes. “As a result the equipment they have installed has already proved to be student friendly, and highly appropriate for both training purposes and for drama examination requirements.”
White Light supplied and installed a lighting system consisting of a fixed Andolite lighting grid with eighty outlets (including floor-level outlets) fed by a mains patch, a house light system, a 48-way dimmer system consisting of LSC Eko dimmers, an LSC maXim LP memory lighting console plus lanterns from ETC (Source Four Zooms), Robert Juliat (RJ310 Fresnels) and Thomas (four-cell floods). Their work also encompassed backstage lighting, a worklight system with dimmable fluorescents and GDS Blue Dome LED fixtures, an intercom system, a small sound system (EV SX300 speakers, EV Q66 amps, Allen and Heath mixing desk), curtains on Hall T70 tracks for the studio plus power supplies for the Studio, foyer and classroom. White Light also provided two staff training sessions - described as “excellent” by Zoladkiewicz - as part of the package, to ensure that everyone was fully up to speed on the new equipment when it came time to put it to use. Hennigan worked in close partnership with Independent Studio Services and Bradbrook Electrical to provide a complete install solution for Richard Challoner School.
The new complex opened last November, with Neil Zoladkiewicz noting that visitors - including “audiences, school visitors and local and central government education advisors” - have been “genuinely impressed” . He has been equally impressed with the service he has received from White Light. “I would have no hesitation in recommending them to other schools and educational establishments wishing to take advantage of West End expertise and professionalism in developing new performance spaces.” Further information about the Richard Challoner School can be found at www.richardchalloner.com.
The new theatre at the Richard Challoner School is just one of the many installation projects completed by White Light in recent months, others including a lighting installation for the new theatre at the Kingsmead School, new lighting systems for the Kingston School Theatre and the Royal School in Hampstead, a new lighting system for St John’s, Smith Square in London, a new grid and lighting infrastructure at the Trafalgar Studios in London, new dimming and stage hoists for the Royal Academy of Music and many more.