CASE STUDY

Disguise solution
drives immersive
visuals in Broadway’s“Here Lies Love”
After becoming an oﬀ-Broadway hit in New York,London and Seattle, award-winning original musical“Here Lies Love” opened in New York City’s Broadway
Theatre in the summer of 2023. In this case study you
will discover how Disguise media servers drive aninnovative narrative traversing across discos and an
infamous dictatorial regime.

www.disguise.one

Summary
Central to the play’s production was renovating the Broadway
Theatre, one of Broadway’s largest venues, to host a dance
ﬂoor instead of traditional orchestra seating. Its orchestra seats
were removed and a performance space evocative of anightclub and wrapped with screens was constructed.
Audience members are oﬀered ticketing options on the dance
ﬂoor itself where they stand and move around in various
locations including the centre of the action with the cast;elevated gallery seats; the front mezzanine, which now
functions as the orchestra with catwalks and satellite stages forthe cast; and in the rear mezzanine.
In this Club Millennium, a DJ tells clubbers to enjoy the party as
they watch the staﬀ reenact the life of Imelda Marcos. Thirty
projectors and more than 60 LCD monitors ﬁll the space anddisplay video content for every moment of the show. Tony
Award-nominated Projection Designer Peter Nigrini enhances
the club setting with immersive visuals existing as afundamental storytelling device.

Image credits: Billy Bustamante, Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

The challenge
Since several hundred audience members
experience the show on the dance ﬂoor andothers from innovative seating, they see theproduction from many diﬀerent perspectives.
The major addition to this version of theproduction was the addition of two wirelessand eight PTZ cameras that make the show asimmersive as possible.
It was necessary for the cameras to exist within the context ofthe story, visible to the characters and reproducting the actionin period appropriate style. As a result, colour control, signal
processing and compositing of the live feeds was critical. Thecameras also needed to be distributed around the venue
depending upon the relationship of any given audience
member to the location of the live performance.

Image credits: Billy Bustamante, Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

The solution
Nigrini selected a Disguise GX 2C and three VX 4 media
servers to drive the musical’s immersive imagery. A long-timeuser of Disguise media servers, his work and the software havegrown up together in many ways. According to Nigrini, much of
the way he builds a show is intertwined with the features ofDisguise.
For “Here Lies Love” Nigrini found that the Disguise solution
gave him the required degree of ﬂexibility in image processingand distribution. As so much of a showgoer’s experience
depends on the seat (or dance ﬂoor position) they occupy, it
was critical that Nigrini could rapidly check on how the show
might look from various places in the theater. The Disguise
Designer software’s 3D GUI made this possible.

Image credits: Billy Bustamante, Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

“Having spent almost 15years working with
Disguise media servers
and contributing to theirfeature set, they now ﬁt mywork like a bespoke suit.
And one that I can always
discuss with the tailor
when I am looking forsomething new.”
Peter Nigrini
Projection Designer

Image credits: Billy Bustamante, Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Results
The Disguise media server solution helps deliver a complex,
immersive musical unlike anything seen on Broadway before.
The production has received largely positive reviews with somecritics citing an amount of detail unique in Broadway shows
and the eﬀective balance of a good time atmosphere and thecontroversial life story of Imelda Marcos.

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2projectors

lcd displays

total HD outputs

wireless handheldcameras

With the support of Disguise and technical solutions partner,
PRG (Production Resources Group), Nigrini delivers compelling
visuals that immerse every audience member in Imelda
Marcos’s unique story, no matter their chosen seating option.

Image credits: Billy Bustamante, Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Disguise equipment used

GX 2C

VX 4

Built with the power to respond,
the GX 2C media server delivers
richer scenes at higher
resolutions, and smootherframe-rates than ever before.

Optimised for playing up to fourtimes uncompressed 4K60 andlossless 10-bit video, the VX 4
powers content of the highest
quality at any scale.

Find out more

Find out more

In Partnership withAssociate Projection Designer: Robert Figueira
Assistant Projection Designer: Zoey Crow
Lead Animator: C. Andrew Bauer
Animators: Dan Vatsky, Kate Ducey, Lacey Erb,
Lisa Renkel, Ryan Belock, Johnny Moreno andDavid Bengali
Projection Programmer: Ido Levran
Production Video: Asher Robinson
Deck Video/LX: Adam Bishop
Technical Solutions Partner: PRG

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