For Vida Huang, a third-year MFA lighting designer at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), lighting her final production, The Rogues’ Trial, meant more than just illuminating the stage — it meant guiding the audience through shifts in time, place and reality.

Presented at the 400-seat Mandell Weiss Forum, the show is a Brazilian morality play written by Ariano Suassuna and directed by Ludmila de Brito. Set in the Brazilian drylands—a semi-arid region spanning roughly 1 million square kilometers—the story mixes Commedia, clowning and Brazilian folktales to follow two friends navigating a broken system of power. The play’s magical realism required lighting that could fluidly transition between reality, fantasy, and the underworld.

To accomplish this, Huang relied on six Chroma-Q Color Force II 72 LED battens to illuminate the venue’s 40-foot-wide, 18-foot-tall cyc. “This is a Brazilian culture play,” Huang said. “It starts with a group of people putting on a show—putting up a set piece on stage and then getting ready to tell a story about what happened in the history of this town.”

As the performance shifted between settings like a circus, the town, and the underworld, Huang used lighting to break from reality. “I used all the lighting fixtures to create moments that are separate from the reality of the original setting,” she said.

Huang likened her process to painting. “I create lighting by using my drawing method: starting with a blank canvas, shaping the structure, and then adding color to bring the vision to life,” she explained. “Lighting is like dance. It creates movement, grabs focus, and represents emotion.”

That approach played a critical role in defining three central visual environments: the Living World, Story World, and Underworld. The creative team spent considerable time determining when and how to light the cyc to maximize impact. “This careful consideration allowed us to use lighting to separate and define each realm visually,” Huang said.

Designed for smooth, even coverage with no color shadowing, the Chroma-Q Color Force II 72s helped Huang achieve those transitions. “The Color Force fixtures were incredibly helpful in my design process,” she said. “Given that the show features many moments focused on nonsensical stories, my goal was to make the setting feel magical, and the fixtures truly helped me achieve that with their wide range of color changes.”

The fixtures also allowed for dramatic effects like gunshot flashes and blinding light during intense scenes. “They supported me in creating dramatic effects, such as flashing for gunshots, blinding lights, and summoning moments, all of which added intensity and enhanced the impact of these key scenes.”

Huang used the fixtures in a ground-row configuration, spaced six inches apart, and assigned each to a single channel in RGBA mode with a group x3 setup. “They were primarily controlled as a group, providing an even and dynamic wash across the cyc,” she said. The team even used them to recreate a sky and rainbow for specific scenes.

Despite UCSD’s limited inventory of fixtures capable of evenly illuminating such a large cyc with color control, the Color Force II 72s filled the gap. “This created a challenge in achieving the smooth, dynamic transitions required for my design,” Huang said.

She also credited the support from A.C. Americas. “I truly appreciate how smooth the entire process was,” she said. “Whenever I had questions, Chris Souza (National Sales Manager) was incredibly responsive and provided detailed information, making the process even more seamless.”

According to the university’s lighting supervisor, the fixtures were easy to install and operate, offered bright output and a wide color range, and were key in supporting Huang’s design and the storytelling throughout the production.