Redwood takes Broadway video production to new heights with Disguise

The visually arresting musical is one of the few on Broadway with a primarily female technical team.

Redwood — which opened at the Nederlander Theatre in February — sees acclaimed star of stage and screen, Idina Menzel return to the place of her Broadway debut in Rent almost 30 years ago. This time, she plays Jesse — a grieving mother embarking on a solo journey of self-discovery that leads her to a redwood forest.

To visualise this incredible setting and Jesse’s vivid flashbacks, the production utilised state-of-the-art LED stagecraft and video design by Tony Award-winner Hana Sooyeon Kim. The majority of the redwood trees on stage were made up of 985 LED tiles powered by eight 4K outputs from Disguise VX1 and VX4 media servers and Brompton LED processors. 

“We wanted to portray the forest as Jesse sees it: a life-changing location that allows her to work through her grief,” begins Kim. “That meant we had to design a space that could transition between a forest and Jesse’s memories. We had this idea of an expansive, immersive forest filled with moving trees that could change or even shift into a city scene seamlessly. The answer to doing this was using LEDs.”

The benefits of LEDs

To help put this vision together, Kim began working with Production Video, Chelsea Zalikowski, who was responsible for many technical aspects of the show, including implementation of the LED panels.

“Redwood was especially challenging because the quantity of LEDs needed meant that no shops had them available to rent,” Zalikowski explains. “We were looking at purchasing these LEDs as opposed to just renting existing stock, which is a higher stakes situation. Luckily, our choice to purchase LEDs paid off. 

By using LEDs, Kim’s designs could be rendered on tall and curved LED columns which would act as the forest’s trees. Video projections could then be used for the forest floor, which meant the video across both trees and the floor could quickly convey a sense of movement. This is immediately visible in the introduction sequence, where characters go up into trees and the video also moves upward, giving the illusion that they are high up. 

The combination of Disguise and LED tiles also enabled the team to make the forest feel like a truly 3D environment. Each tree, leaf and branch seen on the show’s backdrop was placed deliberately by Kim’s team. While this was a lot of work compared to painting a physical set piece, it had visually arresting results.

“No matter where the audience is sitting, they can see a 3D visual of this forest that has been painstakingly designed to immerse them completely in the story,” adds Zalikowski.

A women-majority team

The technically accomplished set isn’t the only way that Redwood breaks boundaries, though. It’s one of the few shows on Broadway that has been produced by a predominantly female technical team. Six out of eight permanent team members are women.

For Zalikowski, this resulted in a unique work environment. “I think that one thing that having a mostly female team gave us was the ability for everyone to feel comfortable, to ask questions all the time, and to make sure that we were constantly working together to get the best product on stage,” she explains. “This was important for Redwood as it was a very challenging production. We had a lot of work to do in very little time, and because video was such a large part of the show we were almost always doing our work in the spotlight. That kind of pressure can be very stressful, and everyone did an amazing job of not only producing immaculate work every step of the way, but doing it while remaining light-hearted, kind, and respectful. And there was never a moment on headset in which things were tense or in which harsh words were spoken.”

Explore more theatre projects using Disguise

Image Credits: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmermann for Murphy Made