The New Jersey Performing Arts Center is one of the largest and most well-appointed performing arts centers in the USA. But earlier this year, it became something more, for the Shaindy Plotzker concert, as audiences were swept up in a kaleidoscopic swirl of engaging images. At times, the massive stage (18-feet deep and 13.5-feet trim) was transformed into an ancient courtyard, before being turned into a mountain summit.

In addition to creating this compelling scenography, the deep stage housed the all-female orchestra supporting the singer. Members of the orchestra were on multi-level risers adding an extra degree of depth to the stage

This uplifting and immersive set was the work of many hands, beginning with the original design by Ronen Najar. Moshe Baskin reworked the design for the USA. Shmuli Van Harush created the video walls. Programmer-operator Max Blackman brought the panorama to life using fixtures supplied by Shaya Adler’s Eagle Production.

Although the massive stage, high trim and large number of fixtures opened opportunities to create an endless flow of stunning looks, they also posed special challenges for Baskin and the production team.

Given the configuration of the set, negative spots were a potential issue. Baskin addressed this by custom-making one-meter-by-one-meter ladders out of single tube truss. Placing the ladders in one meter intervals all the way to the back of the stage, he hung lighting fixtures and video panels on them. He also replaced hundreds of linear fixtures with curved motorized battens.

This not only eliminated negative spots, it also resulted in an all-embracive panorama that opened windows to new worlds on this Newark, New Jersey stage.

This show was based on an original design by Ronen Najar that you put it in Vectorworks and made some changes to. Can you give us a brief overview of what you changed?
“So, the stage in the original design was a lot larger. I had to adjust to work within the smaller space. The part of this that was the hardest, was to keep the shape of the led design and light arrays as every time you make a change everything changes. I also switched out hundreds of fixtures for the curved battens.”

As part of your redesign, you created custom ladders with single tube truss. Why did you need to do that? About how many did you create?
“Originally, I wanted to use modular truss, but I wasn’t happy with the vertical spacing so I decided to get a bunch of F31 tubes that were 1 meter. Then, I just start assembling ladders from scratch to meet the height that worked for me.”

Your set had multiple risers. How did that influence the way you positioned lighting fixtures?
“The risers were in the same shape as the rest of the design so adding those fixtures on the risers really all brought the whole thing together. “

Speaking of that, can you give us a timeline on how the rig was put together?
“Load in was on stage left, so we started with the trusses on stage right (we called them ‘fingers’), then we moved onto the FOH truss. Then it was onto the ladders stage rights then we started assembling the main hanging LED wall starting from stage right, and just worked all the way back to stage left. This way, we didn’t block up the loading area.”

How long did it take to complete this process?
“From our end of things we took about 12 hours. The next day was all touch up and programming.

Did you make any last minute changes to the set?
“The whole set was last minute!” (Editor’s Note: Baskin laughed when saying that. Given the overwhelming positive reaction to this show, he had plenty of reason to smile too!)