These are part of a new installation at Vanemuine in the theatre’s 660 seater Big House venue.

The installation is part of a much wider upgrade programme which has seen all eight Estonian state supported arts and culture venues receive a major lighting refit – with Robe moving lights deployed across all sites!

Involving over 500 fixtures distributed around the country, this been co-ordinated by Robe’s Estonian distributor, Tallinn based E&T Ltd.

Palle Palmé is based in Stockholm and works internationally on a wide variety of shows across theatre, live music and corporate event sectors.

He has been working on shows at The Vanemuine Teater for the last 10 years and enjoys the vibe of this premium producing and receiving house in Estonia’s lively second city, which is renowned for its innovation and high production values.

This is the first time he has used the new lighting rig, which takes both these parameters to new levels.

He could hardly believe his luck this time around, with 55 x LEDWash 1200s, 30 x  LEDWash 600s, 20 MMX Spots, 10 x 600E Spots  and 24 x 600E Washes – all from Robe’s latest ROBIN series -  at his disposal. You could say he was ‘spoilt for choice’ in terms of moving lights and what to do with them!

The LEDWash 1200s and 600s are being used generally for strong rear and side lighting and cross stage washes. These are all hung on the house LX bars. Eight of the 600s are in ‘shin-buster’ positions on the floor for low-level washing.

Fourteen MMX Spots are used mid stage for back beam effects and for texturing the stage and set, designed by Ellen Cairnes, for which they have great impact. The other six MMXs are positioned on three FOH bars and used for front key-lighting, for which they are equally effective as well as more set and stage treatments.

Palmé has been using Robe products in his work generally for around 10 years and appreciates the reliability and good engineering. However, this was the first time that he’s used Robe’s MMX Spots.

“They are excellent,” he comments. ‘Very powerful and bright, great for both front and side lighting and highly versatile when using the graphics wheels and gobos”.

He also programmes his own shows at Vanemuine, on this occasion using a Hog 3 console complete with over 400 cues, and from that perspective, having the Robe’s in the house also “Really accelerated the process”. The show is being operated in the Big House by Kaspar Aus.

He likes the colour range of the LEDWashes and reckons that the whites are good, especially when combined with rich primaries like red, which really accentuates the crispness of the white.

When lighting for musicals, his trademark style is colourful and vivacious – and with both the cartoonish / pop-art aesthetic of this production of Grease and Robe in that equation - there was plenty of scope for dynamic and animated work.

His lighting is also very ‘musical’ in keeping with the popular Grease soundtrack, played by a seven piece live band positioned offstage at Vanemuine.

It is Palmé’s fourth production of Grease but the first with director Georg Malvius, which whom he regularly collaborates on other productions.

For the 2014 season at Vanemuine, he is lighting a new production of ‘Phantom of the Opera’ – which will be only the second properly original version ever licenced worldwide!