LD Jason Ahn evokes West End vibes for City Academy’s production of Evita
Evita, the Tony Award‐winning musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, tells the story about the life of Argentine political leader Eva Perón, the second wife of Argentine president Juan Perón. The story mainly follows her early life, rise to power, charity work, and death.
The first production took place in London’s West End in 1978 and a recent production was presented
by City Academy at the POSK Theatre in London on 4‐10th July.
Jason Ahn's lighting design successfully implemented a professionalism in true West End style. Even though, it was not a big production and the theatre was relatively small, however, the level of lighting design was close to the central of West End. Jason did not hesitate to use lights positioned from high side angles as main portrait lights. They helped to concentrate on an important character with the different looks between the leading characters, Eva and Che, and the rest of the ensembles.
Using colours only at where is really needed, in overall, Jason opted to use a minimum numbers of colours, such as for a party scene and a soldiers scene. While it can be viewed as a bit bland. Jason believes it is a better choice to help create a smooth flow. When we have to look at too much colour change in a show, sometimes it disturbs the flow of the story line. And Jason did not, in fact he was able to implement a well‐organised colour scheme by cleverly using the colours of the national flag of Argentina for the leading background and at the same time by spreading the colours of the flag throughout the entire show.
Jason is a lighting designer with many years of professional experience in the entertainment industry and based on London, UK.
He is currently studying his MA in Light in Performance at Rose Bruford College, and had masterclasses from Patrick Woodroffe, Michael Hulls, Andi Watson, and Lucy Carter. Jason has done an internship at Woodroffe Bassett Design (Patrick Woodroffe), the world-leading lighting design production.
Producer : Rebecca Wicking
Director : Victoria Gimby
Musical Director : Benjamin Levy
Choreographer : Ughetta Pratesi
Lighting Designer : Jason Ahn
Set Designer : Ilenia Onnis
Photography : Steve Gregson
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