ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER'S "WOMAN IN WHITE" may just have the most impressive 'virtual' sets in the world. 
This blogger Joyce Schwarz, author and emerging media consultant was stunned to see the amazing backdrops at a Broadway preview of the play.
WOMAN IN WHITE POSTER can't even hint at the amazingly modern 3D sets the show features on Broadway.
NEW YORK TIMES SAYS 1ST PLAY WHERE COMPUTER ANIMATED IMAGES DOMINATE STAGE...
According to the NEW YORK TIMES reports, "It is the first Broadway show in which computer-animated images completely dominate the stage. Projections appear on six, 16½-foot-tall curved gray screens that move around the edge of the stage in a circle. Think of the computer animation in a Pixar movie like "Toy Story," with a more realistic, less cartoonish look. The setting can change instantly: as two characters tour an estate, the actors stay put as the background dissolves from one room to another. Or, the animation can take the audience through a three-dimensional environment, over fields, houses, churches and graveyards."
THE NEW YORK TIMES quotes: "I want the theater to have some of the visual scope and sense of movement that cinema has," said William Dudley, the show's set and video designer, and the creator of the novel animation effects. "Directors often talk about breaking through the fourth wall. I want to break through the second wall, the back wall."
BEYOND PHYSICAL SETS...
For "Woman in White," adapted from Wilkie Collins's 1860 novel, Lord Lloyd Webber wanted so many locations, Sir Trevor (his famous director) said, that elaborate physical sets would not work. Webber saw Mr. Dudley's animations for Tom Stoppard's 2002 play "The Coast of Utopia" at the National Theater, directed by Sir Trevor, and he was hooked.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY ABOUT THE SETS: Matt Wolf wrote in Variety that the projection "seems, thank heavens, to have simmered down." Charles Spencer in The Daily Telegraph "What's required, surely, is an authentically Victorian atmosphere, not something that looks like an out-of-focus video game."
Dudley reportedly got the idea for 3D animations watching his son play a video game. He also thinks that video-game-style animation might attract young people to the theater.
MODERN ZOETROPE:
Dudley is said to have been inspired by a Victorian Zoetrope parlor toy that whirls to create the impression of a moving picture --you've probably seen them in museums or old arcades-- a figure looks like he is boxing or a girl is dancing. It's a bit like a top spinning.
The scenes have been compared to a Merchant and Ivory look. Many of the audience members that this blogger Joyce Schwarz, emerging media consultant talked with at intermission were not impressed. Plus many feel the musical itself is a real "downer" because it is a bit ghoulish. The sets are spectacular-- too much spectacle though that may overpower the story, let's see what the people have to say. Here are some links to other views on this attempt to break the second wall.Woman in White | The Musical, The Woman In White @ Palace Theatre, London The Woman In White @ Palace Theatre, London He is aided by a visionary set design by William Dudley, which employs huge video walls that engulf the set. Apparently 7 kilometres of video cables are ...
www.musicomh.com/theatre/woman-in-white.htm - 20k - The new bit is in director Trevor Nunn's use of vast, Cinerama-style video screens to provide sets and backdrops from mansion houses to grand staircases, ...
www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/reviews/ review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000652965 - 45k - Nov 15, 2005 -
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