Inside The In-The-Round Lighting Design For 'Teen Beat Live' At CineVita

For The Record's third production at the CineVita brings the troupe's signature mash-up of concert energy and theatrical storytelling into a 1980s-coded love letter, with Teen Beat Live: 80s Movie Mixtape officially opening April 9, 2026, in Inglewood, California. Staged inside the spiegeltent that now serves as the company's permanent home a short walk from SoFi Stadium, the show is built around the soundtracks of John Hughes and Tony Scott era cinema, performed in the round to a 360-degree audience.

Returning to handle the lighting design for the room's third major outing was Emmy Award winner Michael Berger of Innovative Intensity, with Eric Baum as Lighting Programmer and Co-Designer. The duo redeployed and refined the dynamic system they had built into the CineVita rig for the venue's previous productions, reshaping it to support the high-voltage pace of Teen Beat Live without losing the architectural intimacy the spiegeltent demands.

Designing For The Spiegeltent, A Rig Built For 360 Degrees

The CineVita itself is a piece of art. Handcrafted stained glass, intricate mirror work, and detailed woodwork give the room a built-in visual language. 108 Custom RGBW Stained Glass Windows, designed and built specifically for the venue, lean into the architecture of the room itself and become a programmable surface. Paired with 23 MegaLite Vintage Deco Scop fixtures handling accent work, the entire envelope of the tent reads as part of the design rather than something to fight against.

Working in the round adds a layer of constraint that filters every decision on the plot. There is no upstage to hide a fixture in. Every truss line, every cluster, every floor position is on display from somewhere in the room, which forced a design that prioritizes silhouette as much as coverage.

"Eric and I have been refining this rig across three productions, and Teen Beat let us push the energy further than anything we’ve done in the CineVita to date." - Michael Berger, Lighting Designer

The hard movers are anchored by 25 Chauvet R2 Spots and 68 Chauvet R1 Beam Washes, with 30 Elation Satura Profiles handling the cleaner, more articulate cue work where texture and gobo control matter. For wash density and audience-facing color, Berger leaned on 36 Robe Spiiders, a fixture that has earned its place as a workhorse on theatrical-meets-concert hybrids of this scale.

Atmosphere, Movement, And The Console

Two Ultratec Radiance Hazers and two Martin ZR44 Hi Mass Hazers keep the beam work readable from every seat in the round, while two Antari AF4 fans give Berger and Baum the directional control they need to push haze into specific looks rather than fogging out the entire envelope.

"The goal was to introduce a stronger sense of color and energy to the CineVita, while still preserving control of focus and attention in a 360° layout." - Michael Berger, Lighting Designer

Programming and playback runs on a full grandMA3 package, with a Compact XT at front of house, a Programming Wing for flexibility on the desk, and a Light backing it up. Two PU L processing units handle the network load that a rig with this many pixel-mappable fixtures and a 108-window architectural element demands on a busy show file.

Lighting Designer Michael Berger Putting It All Together

Across two acts, the rig has to flip between Brian Justin Crum's "Rebel Yell," Dionne Gipson's "Take My Breath Away," Ty Taylor's "Purple Rain," and an ensemble running at full tilt, all without breaking the 360-degree audience contract. The early reviews are landing where the design intent was always pointed: a room that pulses with the show, holds the architectural character of the spiegeltent, and lets the performances stay the loudest thing in any given cue.

Equipment was provided by Kinetic Lighting and Innovative Intensity Inc.

Produced By: For The Record Lighting Designer: Michael Berger Lighting Programmer / Co-Designer: Eric Baum

Lighting

68x Chauvet R1 Beam Wash 30x Elation Satura Profile 84x NYX LunaBulb 75x Color Kinetics iCove 12x Chauvet DJ Colorband Mpix USB 25x Chauvet R2 Spot 36x Robe Spiider 28x MegaLite NE PixStrip 18 108x Custom RGBW Stained Glass Windows 23x MegaLite Vintage Deco Scop

SFX

2x Ultratec Radiance Hazer 2x Martin ZR44 Hi Mass Hazer 2x Antari AF4 Fan

Control

1x grandMA3 Compact XT

1x grandMA3 Programming Wing

1x grandMA3 Light

2x grandMA3 PU L