Open for Business; Tribeca Lighting Keeps Going in Troubled Times

The industry has been ravaged by the pandemic, but it has been particularly tough on small gear houses serving targeted specialty markets. A good example is Tribeca Lighting, located on lower Sixth Avenue in Manhattan; for years, the company has provided full-service theatrical lighting rentals and sales to a client list that includes members of the downtown theatre scene and broader arts communities. Billed as a shop of actively working designers and technicians, its operations are handled by Eva Pinney with Brian Aldous serving as consultant and technical advisor. Also involved is founder Kyle Chepulis, whose other company, Technical Artistry, offers consultant, design, and installation services for a variety of markets. The continued survival of Tribeca Lighting during the pandemic and associated economic downturn is a tribute to the skills of individuals tending an industry that has been in a state of suspended animation for a year.

The company has gone through a few stages since New York effectively shut down on March 13, 2020. "We closed our doors then and started working from home," Pinney says. "In mid-June, I started coming into the office." At the time, New York was still very much in the grip of the pandemic, so she adjusted opening and closing times to avoid taking the subway during the rush hours. "Around the end of June, we started to get some walk-in business," she adds: For example, the nearby Soho Grand Hotel was reopening, which called for extra lighting gel and hardware. A stream of small architectural products began to trickle too: "A lot of people are working at home and they're discovering they don't like the looks of their LEDs, so they're coming in for color correction," she notes. By July, certain small theatre companies needed gear for online readings and productions. Also, "We had artists coming in who were creating projections for the Black Lives Matter protests" that gripped the city during the summer.

Chepulis notes that Tribeca Lighting stocks certain items that are especially useful right now, including battery-powered generators, which have been particularly popular with clients doing pop-up special events. At the same time, projects by many regular clients have been dogged by the uncertainty of constantly changing pandemic restrictions, causing the company to be extra flexible. "Battery Dance does an annual outdoor festival," Pinney says. "But this year, the city gave them a permit but didn't allow an audience, so they staged their performances during the day and streamed them -- so they only needed cable from us. Another company, New York Children's Theatre, took a package to film their version of The Nutcracker in a rented space. But then a cast member tested positive for the coronavirus and they had to shut down; we froze their rental until they could start up again."

More recently, Pinney says some architectural clients are slowly returning and various downtown theatres are looking at special projects. As an example, she says "The Kitchen [the well-known avant-garde performance space] is doing residencies; one of their artists wanted to shoot all over the building, so they had to rent a bunch of gear from us."

Still, even as the end of the pandemic slowly comes into view, both Chepulis and Pinney note that a significant uptick in business remains fairly far in the future. "We work with downtown theatre companies," she says. "They run on a shoestring on a good day and right now the good days are a year away. We're holding on because they're the basis of our world and it's one we deeply believe in. It's where it all starts." As an example, she cites the recent 25th anniversary of the blockbuster musical Rent, which begin at New York Theatre Workshop on East Fourth Street. "Those are the theatres we're still here for," she says.

At the moment, the best guess for a general reopening of New York City's theatres is sometime in the fall, but nobody expects it all to happen at once. The recent announcement that the government intends to have all adult Americans vaccinated by May might speed up that schedule; then again, it might not. Many dance, opera, and theatre companies are looking holding outdoor performances this summer; and the local government's pop-up performance program at least constitutes a baby step toward normalcy. For Chepulis and Pinney, like everyone else in the industry, the future remains frustratingly to be determined. "It's a waiting game," Pinney says. "But the answer is we are here. The doors are open every weekday. We were closed for a snow day, our first weather-related closing since Hurricane Sandy. Other than that, we're here." And when the time comes, they'll be ready to help New York's vibrant theatre scene come back, big time.