ADB FREEDOM and LIBERTY Desks: In Avignon

Both consoles had already undergone a baptism of fire amid the heat and bustle of last summer’s month-long Festival d'Avignon, as the event celebrated its 65th birthday. The festival has enormous influence in the French theatre and performing arts world, with a reputation for experimentation and encouraging new talent.

Back in 1947, Jean Vilar staged Shakespeare’s Richard II, Paul Claudel’s Tobie et Sara, and Maurice Clavel’s La Terrasse de Midi, thereby launching the very first Festival d’Avignon, and setting the scene as a venue to showcase unknown work and modern scripts. The Festival spearheaded a rebirth of French theatre and has grown to encompass all types of performing arts including music, dance, poetry readings, and, more recently, fringe theatre.

Over the years it has become a permanent and important fixture not only on the French but the world festival calendar. By 1993 the Festival was staging around 40 productions of more than 300 performances, in around 20 different venues, with audiences of more than 100,000. In 2011, the 65th Festival d’Avignon saw 128,000 tickets sold, and the production of Mademoiselle Julie, starring French actress Juliette Binoche, was broadcast live on French national television.

During the month-long period of the Festival the lighting team handled a wide variety of touring productions as well as productions created for the first time during the festival. Versatility, and the ability to perform reliably under extremely demanding conditions, were essentials for the lighting equipment, too.

More than 20 productions at the festival were successfully staged over a month, using ADB’s new FREEDOM and LIBERTY lighting control desks. After just half a day’s training, the lighting crew was ready to go, and lighting operators, says ADB product specialist Gilles Govaerts, “had no problems using the desks, and found the additional features extended their creative horizons”.

 

An additional FREEDOM console was installed at another venue, the new Salle de Spectacle de Vedene theatre, which opened in 2010, becoming a festival venue for the first time this year. Set in landscaped grounds, it seats 440.

“All went well and the ADB desks performed perfectly,” commented Govaerts. “It was the perfect major production début for them – tough conditions, working round the clock, a wide range of productions, and they took everything that was thrown at them.”

Mademoiselle Julie lighting designer Laurent Berger said that LIBERTY allowed him to work quickly on creating cues. The desk operator was Marianne Pelcerf, who used chasers extensively on the fluorescent light ceiling. The lighting team pronounced the LIBERTY and FREEDOM desks as “reliable, quick and intuitive,” adding, “LIBERTY and FREEDOM are not only simple-to-use lighting control desks but genuinely creative lighting tools – many shows could not have been staged during the festival’s short rehearsal times without them.”

Mademoiselle Julie, starring Juliette Binoche, Nicolas Bouchaud and Bénédicte Cerutti, is commencing a world tour and the lighting team has specified a LIBERTY control desk for the tour