Henderson County Performing Arts Center (HCPAC), a community theater in Athens, Texas, recently put ADJ lighting fixtures to creative use in a production of Joseph Kesselring’s classic comedy Arsenic and Old Lace. With a lighting design built around an unusual black-and-white aesthetic, the production presented a distinctive challenge for Technical Director Wes Atkin, who served as both Lighting Designer and Programmer for the show. Drawing on the versatility of the venue’s in-house ADJ Focus Wash 400 automated luminaires, Akin developed a carefully controlled lighting scheme that helped bring the director’s creative vision to life.
First performed on Broadway in 1941, Arsenic and Old Lace is a dark comedy centered on Mortimer Brewster, a theater critic who discovers that his seemingly sweet and harmless aunts, Abby and Martha, have been poisoning lonely old men with arsenic-laced elderberry wine. As Mortimer attempts to conceal their crimes, the arrival of his eccentric brother Teddy, who believes himself to be President Theodore Roosevelt, and his dangerous brother Jonathan sends the family’s already chaotic situation spiraling further out of control. Blending murder, madness, and razor-sharp humor, the play remains one of the most beloved comedies in American theater.
For HCPAC’s production, Director Ethan Herrin proposed an unconventional visual approach that would make the show stand apart from a traditional theatrical presentation.
“There’s a theater over in Dallas that has become somewhat famous for doing black and white productions and Ethan wanted to try it,” explains Wes. “I, somewhat naively, was happy to give it a go. However, it turns out that it’s much harder to pull off than we initially expected. Not only was it a lighting challenge, but it also required a huge team effort, as it depended on the right makeup, costuming and set design, with the right undertones, to allow a consistent look.”
The resulting design used a predominantly monochromatic palette, with color reserved for specific dramatic purposes. Red signified poison and death, while a window on the set was illuminated in golden yellow before transitioning to blue to communicate changes in the time of day. This selective use of color made each exception to the black-and-white aesthetic especially significant.
The production opened with a vivid display of blue and red illuminating the set as audience members entered the theater. At the beginning of the performance, Wes programmed a carefully timed sequence that progressively transformed the stage. The colored background lighting faded away, beginning with the upstage balcony and moving down the set, before the lights illuminating the furniture were extinguished. Finally, color photographs projected onto the walls faded to black and white. The stage lighting then returned in white, revealing the actors and establishing the production’s distinctive monochromatic visual style.
“I was really pleased with the effect of transitioning the stage from color to black and white,” comments Wes. “And it generated a great reaction from the audience – plenty of oohs and aahs – especially on the first few nights before word got out!”
ADJ Focus Wash 400: The Foundation of the Lighting Design
The primary fixtures used to illuminate the actors, props, and scenery were ADJ’s Focus Wash 400 automated luminaires. HCPAC’s in-house lighting rig includes 20 of the fixtures, installed in the grid above the stage. Purchased approximately two years ago following a period of community fundraising, they replaced an ageing system comprising a mixture of conventional fixtures and inexpensive LED PARs that had begun to fail.
The Focus Wash 400 is an automated wash luminaire powered by a 400W RGBALC LED engine, combining red, green, blue, amber, cyan, and lime LEDs to deliver extensive color-mixing capabilities. Its six-inch Fresnel lens and motorized zoom, adjustable from 9 to 43 degrees, provide an even field of light with a soft-edged beam. This combination of output, optical quality, and remote adjustability makes it a versatile solution for theatrical applications where precise control of both coverage and color is essential.
“The Focus Wash 400 was definitely the right choice for HCPAC,” enthuses Wes. “When we upgraded our tech, we evaluated lots of options from ADJ as well as other manufacturers and this fixture clearly came out on top. It has great light output with excellent color rendering and that nice Fresnel soft-edged beam. Being an automated fixture, with a good zoom range and extensive color mixing, it allows maximum flexibility controlled from the lighting desk, meaning we very rarely have to physically move lights around. This was an important consideration for a community theater that replies on volunteer techs and has a fixed grid with no fly bars! The price point was also very attractive, allowing us to not only purchase very competent luminaires, but the right quantity of fixtures for the space.”
Creating Depth, Atmosphere, and Emotion Without Color
Although the Focus Wash 400 offers extensive color-mixing capabilities, the production required Atkin to approach much of the lighting design without relying on one of the most familiar tool available to a lighting designer. With color largely removed from the equation, achieving the right appearance for the actors and establishing visual depth across the stage demanded particular attention to detail.
“The lighting was very important in delivering our director’s creative vision,” states Wes. “We found that if I didn’t get the color tones just right, they just looked like a bunch of dead people walking around on stage! We spent several hours playing with the color palette to get just the right tone. After that, it got even more difficult because then I needed to create depth and space, shadows and emotion, draw focus to certain parts of the stage as the characters move around and interact, but I had to do that without the use of color. Where traditionally I might use one color on the front right of a character and another color for the front left to create a dramatic shadow and then hit them with another color from behind to create depth, I now only had one color to work with. So I had to figure out how to achieve the same result in a different way, which meant intensities and angles and things like that became a lot more important.”
The Focus Wash 400's even output and adjustable zoom provided Atkin with the flexibility to shape the light around the performers and scenery. By carefully balancing intensity and beam angles, he could create contrast, introduce shadows, and establish separation between actors and their surroundings without compromising the production's consistent monochromatic appearance.
The approach also demonstrated how a versatile automated wash fixture can serve as much more than a source of general stage illumination. In this production, the ability to fine-tune light levels and coverage was central to creating the visual language of the show, allowing subtle changes in illumination to carry much of the expressive work that color would ordinarily perform.
A Splash of Red for a Dark Theatrical Twist
While most of the production remained in black and white, a small number of carefully selected color effects played an important role in communicating the story. One particularly striking moment involved a window seat containing a dead body, for which Atkin used an ADJ Jolt 300 to produce a vivid red glow from within the set piece.
The saturated red illumination provided an unmistakable visual cue, reinforcing the show's macabre subject matter while creating a striking contrast with the otherwise monochromatic stage. By restricting color to specific moments such as this, the production ensured that each use had a clear dramatic purpose.
In addition to the ADJ fixtures, two Cyber Pak four-channel dimmers from ADJ's sister company Elation were used to power the wall sconces integrated into the scenery and a chandelier suspended above a dining table onstage. These practical light sources helped integrate the set's decorative elements into the overall lighting design.
Together, the fixtures allowed HCPAC's technical team to coordinate general stage illumination, atmospheric effects, and the set's built-in lighting as part of a cohesive theatrical presentation.
Flexible Lighting for Community Theater
The production of Arsenic and Old Lace highlighted the creative possibilities available to community theaters when a well-chosen lighting system combines dependable output with practical flexibility. For HCPAC, the Focus Wash 400 fixtures provide a versatile foundation that can be adapted to the demands of different productions without requiring extensive physical changes to the rig.
For Atkin, the black-and-white production offered an opportunity to explore a different approach to theatrical lighting, demonstrating how careful control of intensity, angles, and contrast can create depth and emotion even when color is largely absent. The result was a distinctive presentation of a much-loved American comedy, with ADJ's automated luminaires helping transform an ambitious creative concept into an engaging stage experience.
Production
Arsenic and Old Lace
Director
Ethan Herrin
Lighting Designer / Programmer
Wes Akin
Photography
Opie Ryan
Gear List
20 x ADJ Focus Wash 400
1 x ADJ Jolt 300
2 x Elation Cyber Pak
