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Philly Show Illuminates Our Past in Vivid Fashion PHILADELPHIA - Tighten the laces in your sneakers, kids. Go to the bathroom now, because for the next hour or so, we're walking back through history, and I promise you, even if they had them on the tour, you'd cringe at what passed for a porta-potty back in the 1770s. Stop the groaning, put away the long faces. I know what you're thinking - "an hour of boring history, some way to spend a Saturday night." And normally, I might agree; I'm not too old to remember what those educational trips my folks took me on meant: shear boredom, excruciating agony. Not tonight, though. This is going to be different. This is going to be history kicked up a few notches, as the TV chef might say. This, dear kiddos, is history that won a THEA Award from the Theme Entertainment Association. Want to know who else won THEAs this year? Check out this list: the Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony (remember those fireworks at the harbor?); the Nickelodeon Flying Super Saturator; places such as Walt Disney World Resort and Six Flags. Trust me, this is not some boring museum filled with antiques and dioramas. This is not your fifth-grade teacher reading in a monotone out of some cliché-filled history textbook. From the moment you put on your headset computer, to the last note of the "God Bless America" finale, you will learn the story of the birth of our nation from the very people who created the history. The story comes to life with incredibly realistic sounds and extraordinary images that are larger than life---three stories larger to be precise. This is fifth-grade history class roughly what IMAX is to one of those Sony Walkmans. This, folks, is Philadelphia’s Lights of Liberty, a show billed as a "Sound and Light Spectacular" that more than lives up to its billing, a rare achievement in this age of hype.Currently in its third season, the $12 million show lures big crowds to downtown Philly, for an experience that mesmerizes the younger set and amazes their parents. The artisans who developed the show embraced Old World techniques. The technology employed is cutting edge. The story, of course, is timeless. It starts with the headphones; miniature computers mounted on a pair of high quality stereo headphones---the good ones with vinyl padding around the ears, not the hard plastic, thin foam covered Walkman kind. The clip-on box, the size of a cigarette pack, has 64 megs of flash RAM and was developed for Lights of Liberty by folks with a client list that includes the U.S. Navy and NASA. Unable to use radio signals to beam the sound around the 6-block area of Independence NationalHistorical Park, where it all takes (and much of it took) place, the solution came in the form ofthese little mounted MP3 players. Infrared technology allows the show’s staff to synchronize start times for all visitors. Shows leave as often as six times an hour from the PECO Energy Liberty Center. The headphones can be programmed to play the soundtrack in English, Spanish, Italian, German and Japanese. There’s also a special children’s version available, with narration by Whoopi Goldberg. The "biaural" effect of the headgear might best be described as surround sound for headphones. It is astonishingly authentic, as was obvious from the people flinching at the sound of nearby gun and cannon fire during the battle scene. An all-star cast provides the narration and character voices. Walter Cronkite plays host to the "grown-ups’ version". Charlton Heston voices John Nixon, who reads the Declaration of Independence to the public for the first time. The script, by the way, was written by the same guy who wrote "Gettysburg", Ron Maxwell. Adding to the realism of the voices telling the story are the lifelike background sounds, the gallops of horses, the murmurs of the crowd, the loyalist calling out "God Save The King" as he hears the revolution proclaimed, the ringing of the Liberty Bell in the distance as Heston does his soliloquy---all layered on top of a moving score performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. When a colonial militiaman yells with alarm, "Look to the rear, men", you’ll turn in alarm, then duck for cover as the Readcoats bring their muskets to bear and you find yourself looking down the muzzles as the British commander yells, "Fire!". Like the sound, the imagery of the Lights of Liberty is spectacular and the technology involved impressive. Art Director David Mitchell, a guy with three Tonys on his mantle, had some challenges to conquer on this show that he doesn’t usually encounter on Broadway. For starters, this thing is outdoors. It is in five acts, each in five locations, spread over a walk roughly seven city blocks long. Oh yeah, did we mention the fact that it also takes place on some of the most historically revered land in the United States and that there cannot be any permanent construction? And one more thing; each night, after the show, make sure there’s no sign you were ever here when the crowds arrive to see the Liberty Bell in the morning. The solution: 22 custom-built wheeled units about the size of the carts used at airports to haul luggage from the terminal to the planes, loaded with $5 million worth of special projectors and lighting equipment. Each night, crew roll them into place; along with about a mile of cables; then, following the last show of the evening, they are rolled back into storage, leaving not so much as a dent in the grass as evidence. The projectors are powerful enough to transform pictures that began as 3-foot-high paintings into images up to five stories tall. The images can also be manipulated and moved of the projectors, giving the illusion of depth and motion. Additional effects are generated by permanent lighting fixtures placed outside of the park, including a 7,000-watt spotlight that beams down on Independence Hall from the Penn Mutual Tower nearly a block away. Making it all come together are crews of five or six technicians for each scene, all so well hidden that the only way you know they were there is by reading the show’s press kit. First dreamt of more than 50 years ago by Edmund Bacon, the noted city planner (and father of the actor Kevin Bacon) and turned into reality under the leadership of former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, Lights of Liberty tells the story of Philadelphia in the 1770’s, when the city was the incubators for the ongoing experiment we call democracy. Tracing a route that starts at Benjamin Franklin’s house and winds through Franklin Court, past Carpenter’s Hall---where the first Continental Congress met---and the Second National Bank and ending up at Independence Hall, this multimedia adventure gives a unique insight into the birth of our nation through the words of the patriots themselves. The story of The Stamp Act, and the colonists’ distaste for the tax it imposed, is told through an exchange of letters between Franklin, who was in London at the time as representative of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and his wife, Deborah, whose letters to Ben told of the growing unrest (protesters nearly burned down Franklin’s home) the King’s latest levy was brewing. At Carpenter’s Hall, images of those first congressional delegates appear in the windows (actually, the building’s shutters are closed form a surface for the projections) as we listen in on the debate between the loyalists and those feel the King and Parliament have gone too far. "I am not a Virginian, but an American.", proclaims Patrick Henry as proponents of independence state their case. After Heston reads the Declaration of Independence, the show’s emotional epilogue features the image of a Betsy Ross-era Stars and Stripes projected proudly on Independence Hall as the Philadelphia Orchestra performs a rousing rendition of "God Bless America" that had our entire group of nearly 50 people singing away in the wonderful tone-deaf way people usually sing when wearing headphones. Our 8-year-old continued to hum like a miniature Kate Smith all the way back to the Liberty Center, where we turned in our headsets and reclaimed the driver’s license that was being held as security. In the gift shop, selected by Philadelphia Magazine as the best souvenir shop in town, she insisted on buying an imitation parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence, passing on the usual favorites like pencils and key chains to hang on her backpack. Even her somewhat jaded 10-year-old sister, who a few hours earlier had been balking at having to miss some rerun on television, admitted is was, "Pretty Cool." |