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The new venue is part of Christchurch's earthquake recovery plan – enacted after the devastating 2011 event – which saw it completely rebuilt, and opened in May 2025, complete with the Robe T11s on the house lighting rig.

The shows were The King’s Speech, the inspiring story of how King George VI found his voice based on the Academy Award-winning film, which ran for 4 weeks and was followed by blockbuster musical 9 to 5: The Musical, featuring the music and lyrics of Dolly Parton, so two completely contrasting works.

The theatre had just taken delivery of 50 new Robe T11 fixtures, 30 x T11 Profiles and 20 x T11 Fresnels, which are now part of the house lighting rig. As the two productions required completely different aesthetic approaches and treatments when it came to lighting, the T11s proved their versatility and suitability for theatre.

With The King’s Speech, most of the T11 work involved illuminating Daniel Williams’ set design, which included a large, gilded picture frame centrepiece that broke up the stage into different areas and required very precise lighting. The fixtures’ accurate shuttering was very helpful here.

Rachel was “impressed” with the punch of the fixtures, especially in relation to the compact size. She also used T11s for set wall washes, with two fixtures creating slats of light along the back in a very collaborative workflow with Daniel that brought the various environments and locations to life onstage.

The psychology of the narrative demanded plenty of dynamic shifts across the performance space, some of which Rachel achieved using colour treatments, so it was great to have the multispectral T11s there in the over-stage rig to assist.

The show, directed by Benjamin Kilby-Henson, with music by Matt Short was hugely popular with the public and also gained significant critical acclaim.

9 to 5: The Musical was directed by Ben Freeth, who also took a major interest in the lighting.

For this show, the T11 Profiles were utilised upstage as high side and top lights to highlight a spectacular honeycomb-shaped set designed by Mark McEntyre and Rosie Gilmore.

Colour, vibrance and luminosity were absolutely fundamental to this show as part of the storytelling.

Colour transformations accompanied the character arcs and Rachel developed key colour looks for each person that evolved and became richer and more symbolic as the action unfolded. She also took inspiration from the costumes for some of this treatment and crafted plenty of set illumination and eye candy that complemented the overall thematic looks.

Rachel even used one of the T11 Profiles as a follow spot.

This was manually operated very diligently by Geoff Nunn from the house lighting crew, using a ‘Number 8 Wire’ system. This is a technical term originating from the 4.0mm diameter galvanized steel wire used for New Zealand sheep farm fencing … that has become cultural-speak for Kiwi ingenuity, versatility, and handling of improvisational moments!

Used during 11 songs, the T11 follow spot enabled actors to be lit with the exact skin tones that suited them best by picking the variant most suited for each character.

It was the first time that Rachel had used T11s to light any of her productions, and she thinks that “the colour mixing and the clarity of the output are great,” and it certainly won’t be the last time she includes them in her designs.

A variety of other fixtures on The Court Theatre’s house rig were used for both shows, but the T11s offered a lot of choice and variety.

Rachel relished the opportunity of working at The Court Theatre and using their latest technology, working with the other “very talented” professionals and great people involved, including Giles Tanner, who is head of technical at The Court Theatre and an LD as well as being closely involved with spec’ing the equipment.

Bradley Gledhill was the lighting co-programmer, an Auckland-based lighting, set, and video designer and co-founder of Filament Eleven 11, together with Rachel.

For Giles Tanner, the theatre’s chief LX, when they started designing and discussing technology for the new theatre, everyone knew that LED lighting would play a major role.

Their evaluation was thorough, initially assessing around 250 different fixture models across all different classes of luminaire, before being narrowed down dramatically for in-situ testing, with smooth dimming and low noise absolutely fundamental to the decision.

“From the outset, Robe’s T11 series fixtures seemed to be strong contenders. They easily aced the noise and dimming tests. We liked their ‘design ethos’ and they appeared to be designed with theatre applications in mind,” commented Giles.

The 5 to 50 degree zoom suited the venue perfectly, gobo image quality, edge quality (of the profile version) and colour rendering were “all exceptional,” he noted, adding, “The light output and build quality were also impressive.”

They liked the modular construction, with the TE replaceable light engine and power supply units, which combined with the high build quality were judged to be great for longevity, and additional options (like rotating gobo, iris etc.), according to Giles, “offered a huge degree of flexibility going forward, and little touches – shutter lock and variable inbuilt frost – all added to a very compelling package.”

Photo Credit: Charlie Jackson (Charlie Rose Creative)

Robe T11s Hold Court in Christchurch

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