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Limelight News & In-The-News

As Seen In The Berkshire Eagle . . .
This article was originally published in the Berkshire Eagle, March 1, 2006, and is available in it's original format (with photos) in the paid archives at www.berkshireeagle.com.

Specialist sets mood with lights

By Benning W. De La Mater, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Berkshire Eagle

Wednesday, March 01
LEE

If it's 19th-century England, you need fog. A Tuscan sunset, fiery orange hues. The end of the world, some Armageddon-like flames.

But in the Berkshires, how are you going to conjure up all these elements when you need them pronto?

Try Limelight Productions Inc. in Lee. The company off Route 102 has been renting and selling lighting and special effects equipment to theater and television and film companies across the Northeast and beyond since 1971.

That was the year owner and Pittsfield native William Beautyman left behind a career as a professor of theater and stage design at Berkshire Community College, purchased "a dozen lights and some cables," and took a shot at a business venture he saw had potential.

"There weren't as many theater companies then as there are now," said Beautyman, 61. "But I saw a trend. People were calling me at BCC asking if I knew where to get some lights. There was no one locally."

Today, Beautyman has grown the niche company into one of the largest providers outside of Boston and New York. Limelight equipment is currently being used in Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatrical production, "Some Like it Yacht."

Beautyman's lights shined brightly on Pudding's Man and Woman of the Year honorees, Richard Gere and Halle Berry, in ceremonies last week.

The inside of Limelight's warehouse is a virtual playland for theater geeks. There are more than 1,000 light fixtures, some that run as much as $5,000 and can project just about any color or design you can think of onto a stage.

There are miles of cables, paint, makeup, fog machines and "The Foam Dome" - a machine that spews never-ending waves of soapy suds onto a floor.

"That's very popular with high school and college dances," Beautyman said.

Beautyman, who employs eight, has supplied lighting to traveling concerts ranging from Metallica to Hall and Oates, weddings at local resorts, Jacob's Pillow, Berkshire Theatre Festival and, his favorite, Dick Clark's New Year's Eve bash in New York City.

Beautyman certainly has a passion for performance; more specifically, lighting.

"You really can create a whole mood, or quickly change a mood," he said.

Robert Boland, a former chairman of the fine arts department at BCC, said Beautyman's company is an integral part of the local theater scene.

"Lighting is absolutely an important part of the whole thing," Boland said. "Your production value depends on how capable and imaginative your lighting people are.

"It's usually more feasible for a seasonal theater company to rent lighting rather than purchase it. There's a lot of factors involved, like storage and maintenance of equipment. Also, lighting technology is changing so rapidly that something state-of-the-art today will be out-of-date in a few years."

Beautyman said he has made large investments in equipment.

"It's a tough business," he said. "All new construction is always low bid, and we work on short deadlines."

A frantic call from a local theater company needing some lights "for tomorrow's show" is common. "In our business, we're very attuned to the 'Show Must Go On' thinking," he said.

One of the company's more popular services is a free section on its Web site (www.limelightproductions.com) that helps "rookie" set designers, such as school teachers or local theater groups. They can e-mail questions to a fictional set-design maven called, R.Teasta, played by sales manager Ellen Jones, a former set design professor from Williams College.

"We give tips to people who are looking to make an effect," Jones said. "We like to help people create designs that are inexpensive and easy to create."

But it's not all lights and action. Limelight also creates, with a cadre of seamstresses in an upstairs loft, curtains and riggings for stages, and Beautyman is currently working on what he calls one of his most important jobs to date: creating the curtains and rigging set-up for the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield.

It's a $350,000 undertaking that will take three tractor-trailer loads of equipment to deliver when it's ready to install in late April.

"Knowing that we have been part of a process to bring a great asset to the community, to add something that will have a life longer than any of us, is a tremendous honor."

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