[USA] Five-time Tony Award-nominated lighting designer Ben Stanton chose Ayrton Diablo S fixtures for the latest interpretation of Andrew Lloyd Webber\u2019s Phantom of the Opera \u2013 an immersive production called Masquerade staged on West 57th Street in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
Masquerade began previews 31 July 2025 and has been a hot ticket since. The show takes guests, clad in formal evening wear, through the Paris Opera House where they move through the music, mystery and seduction of the Music of the Night. They journey across multiple floors in an expansive former retail space Lee\u2019s Art Shop, and experience what the press has called the complex and intimate staging and lush visuals of the famed narrative.<\/p>\n
Stanton had used various Ayrton lighting instruments for concert tours before he first implemented Diablo S fixtures for Broadway\u2019s Maybe Happy Ending. He has reprised them for Masquerade with PRG furnishing the large complement of fixtures.<\/p>\n
\u201cAndrew Lloyd Webber is excited about supporting new interpretations of his classic works,\u201d notes Stanton. \u201cMasquerade is a chance for Phantom fans and people who have not been exposed to the previous shows to experience the production in a more intimate way. The show covers four floors and the rooftop of the former Lee\u2019s Art Shop and was a huge undertaking to light: it was like doing many plays at once. We lit at least 30 spaces, some with a very high level of theatricality, some very experimental and some in-between.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Stanton\u2019s goal that each space \u201cfeel authentic and not overloaded with theatrical equipment. We tried to hide as much as possible and use smaller scale fixtures, but we were still lighting a musical and needed to do justice to the singers and these amazing songs\u201d.<\/p>\n
Using Diablo S fixtures again was \u201ca no-brainer,\u201d the lighting designer recalls. \u201cSize and weight were crucial factors, and the Diablo has a high output for their size and are really beautiful lights. They are concentrated in certain spaces, some mounted in the plaster ceilings, some on Unistrut and other unconventional rigging solutions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe show is intricately timed and staged with six audience groups moving through in 15-minute intervals,\u201d Stanton continues. \u201cSome spaces are used in multiple ways: You can revisit them and they look entirely different. You can attend the show more than once and have different experiences. The Diablo helped with that dramatic transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says the Diablo fixtures are \u201cbeautiful for creating heightened theatricality and intense focus on moments featuring iconic songs. They are also integrated inside the famed chandelier to create special effects.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stanton and his team of associate lighting designers David Shocket and Vittoria Orlando, programmer Alex Fogel and production electrician Briana Messina worked the entirety of last summer to put together the lighting for Masquerade. \u201cIt\u2019s like nothing I\u2019ve ever done before; I\u2019m very proud of it,\u201d Stanton says. \u201cThe Diablo fixtures were a great choice and such reliable fixtures. They\u2019ve performed perfectly with no issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting in North America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[USA] Five-time Tony Award-nominated lighting designer Ben Stanton chose Ayrton Diablo S fixtures for the latest interpretation of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-179476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}