Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Since its Hollywood debut in 1978, there has been no shortage of Grease stage adaptations. When director Josh Prince—known for Beautiful: The Carol King Musical and Shrek, The Musical—set out to bring this cult classic to Toronto’s Historic Winter Garden Theater, he dreamed up a more youthful engaging version. Prince hoped this would stray away from pre-formulated expectations audiences might have based on the film adaptation, and instead takes it back to its original gritty Chicago roots.
Perhaps ironically, he relied on an array of sophisticated technology elements to pull it off. And he knew exactly who to go to to make it happen.
Prince brought in world-renowned Matthew Haber, Co-Founder & Managing Director of BeSide Digital, a New York City experiential design studio, whose claim to fame is its acute ability to bring together people and technology in a space to create compelling narratives.
Most commonly known for its semi-permanent, digital in-person experiences for fashion and entertainment brands, BeSide was responsible for Diane von Furstenberg’s life-sized runway holograms at New York Fashion Week in September. In October, BeSide helped bring the immersive, multi-room experimental Broadway show KPOP to life through architectural and art structures powered by digital, sound and lighting.
Now, BeSide’s Haber is bringing audiences back to the 50s in Prince’s Grease by applying the studio’s in-person sensibilities to the stage, beginning with large-scale 3D projection mapping on every square inch of the set to bring scenes to life.
For the show’s iconic number Grease Lightning Haber exploded the character's fantasy about a drag race into an immersive 3D projection-mapped environment that surrounds the cast onstage and brings them to famous Chicago landmarks. Hundreds of pieces of original content and animation throughout the show.
Traveling back and forth to Toronto has been both frequent and hassle-free for the New York City-based designer. Two years ago, Haber got his private pilot’s license, which started as a hobby, but has now become a source of transportation for one of the few Americans working on the production. Since August, Matthew has commuted weekly between BeSide’s New York studios and Toronto.
When asked how theater work fits in with BeSide’s work for global brands, Haber said, “I began my career in theater. It’s what has given me and my business partner Phillip Gulley [who also has a theater background] insight into the way people expect to interact with real-life stories, and what’s necessary to elicit emotion from an experience. Working on Grease allows us to return to our roots. It’s s definitely a passion project, and a way of refining the narrative design skills we bring to other projects."
Haber and BeSide Digital’s next project will be Skeleton Key, a new hybrid entertainment-retail concept that marries three immersive escape room-type games with a bar and lounge. The first Skeleton Key location will open to the public in January 2018, with two more locations slated to open in North America soon thereafter.
Grease ticket prices range from $29-$159 and can be purchased online at www.greasetoronto.com , by phone at 1-855-985-5000, or at The Elgin Winter Garden Theatre Centre Box Office, 189 Yonge Street during regular business hours. Performances of Grease run Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m., and matinees are on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. at The Elgin Winter Garden Theatre Centre.
Photo: Scene from Grease.
2017-11-17
Toronto: "Grease" uses new technology to go old school