Brian Ellsworth is a Lighting Specification Sales Associate at Forman & Associates – our Manufacturer’s Rep. for Southern California. Brian shared the story below with us about how a recent Rosco Braq Cube Installation he worked on ended up illuminating the world-famous puppet shows of The Bob Baker Marionette Theater.
I recently completed a project with Andrew Lia, the production manager at Oxy Arts at Occidental College in Los Angeles on what had been referred to during the project simply as a "black box theater." During a tour of the space after the installation was complete, I discovered that inside the theater was a residency of The Bob Baker Marionette Theater.
The Bob Baker Marionette Theater is the oldest children’s theater in Los Angeles. The puppetry of Bob Baker and his troupes have been on TV and in films, and his marionettes have entertained thousands of children and adults worldwide for more than 70 years. Well, it turns out that they just moved into a new space, which happens to be nearby the new Oxy Arts space I was working on – and that’s how these famous marionettes ended up in residence at Oxy Arts for the summer.
“Bob's Petite Theater” is the first local public program from The Bob Baker Marionette Theater following the announcement of their new home in Highland Park. They’re also one of the first tenants to perform at the Oxy Arts space. Programming includes puppet shows, workshops and special programs – and they needed an LED lighting solution that would illuminate them all.
The Rosco Braq Cube 4C was the perfect choice to light the space. It provided the needed punch in a small form factor that the venue required. It was the clear winner in a pre-project shoot-out with another competitive LED brand. After the shootout, Andrew wrote: “thank you for lending us the Braq Cube. It is a formidable unit and impressed all involved with the shootout. I admit that I was the skeptical one of the bunch, but next to the newer Chauvet fixture; it blew it away as far as output and beam angle.”
In the end, Andrew and his Oxy Arts team installed 16 of the Rosco Braq Cube 4C LED fixtures inside their new Oxy Arts on York space, and I look forward to seeing what they illuminate inside there next.
Bob's Petite Theater is in residence at Oxy Arts throughout the summer of 2019. If you’d like to learn more about the LED lights Oxy Arts chose to illuminate their new space – visit the Braq Cube 4C product page on the Rosco website.