Marc Janowitz Relies on Robe T2s for Touring and TV Projects

	Janoqitz maximized the T2's highly nuanced CTO keying, creating hints of lavender, steel, and pale blues, which the multispectral LED engine delivers so accurately in CMY mode. Photo: Adam Berta

Lighting designer Marc Janowitz has used Robe's T2 Profile luminaires on several recent projects, including Trey Anastasio's 2025 solo acoustic tour and two high-profile HBO specials: Brett Goldstein's The Second Best Night of Your Life debut stand-up special at the Bergen PAC (Performing Arts Center) in New Jersey, and Marc Maron's Panicked, staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)'s Harvey Theater.

"This is a fantastic and highly adaptable light source. It is perfectly suited for camera and broadcast environments and also for subtle theatrical-style drama and effects," Janowitz says.

Lighting for all three shows was supplied by Main Light, via account handler Patrick Bellino; the company has recently invested in T2 Profiles, delivered by Robe North America.

Janowitz has worked with Anastasio on his solo projects since 2012. The solo acoustic project began in 2018, and the 2025 tour was the most extensive, yet with 20 performances at theatres across the East Coast, Midwest, and Southeast US. The show featured stripped-back, raw, and acoustic versions of Anastasio's Phish and solo materials, presented in the most intimate of settings with emphasis on the words and the sonic narrative.

With the challenge of only 10' of truck space available for lighting in this scaled-back production, Janowitz went with the twelve T2 Profiles hung above the stage on whatever bars, trussing, or rigging was available in the venue, plus 23 Robe Tetra2 LED battens, used to illuminate the cyc, which also had a scrim flown in front of it. An additional six T2s were deployed on the floor and used for low sidelight for Trey, as well as textural backgrounds on the scrim and cyc.

The T2s gave Janowitz all the subtlety and finesse needed to support the artist in a very intimate environment. Janoqitz maximized the T2's highly nuanced CTO keying, creating hints of lavender, steel, and pale blues, which the multispectral LED engine delivers so accurately in CMY mode.

"It was brilliant having a source where you could palpably see the difference between a 'pale lavender' and 'light pale lavender' or a 'light mint' and an extra 'light mint'," he notes.

Custom gobos were inserted in some of the slots for projecting precision texturing onto the cyc, using the fixture's two rotating gobo wheels, animation wheel, two rotating prisms, and changeable one-degree and five-degree variable frosts that work along the full zoom range. "We had cloud moments, water fall moments, even a rising moon for the song 'Wolfman's Brother'."

Combining these complex effects allowed Janowitz to produce "some incredible aberrations which in turn opened up and created dynamic new visual spaces" surrounding the artist in which the song would unravel.

"The MLP feature [Multi-Level Prisms] unlocked the potential of what we could project on the cyc in a way that we've never seen in a moving light," the designer says. "Once lighting director Pat Hayes and I figured out how to access it, we looked at each other and immediately embarked on a deep dive."

Utilizing these eighteen T2s gave Janowitz infinite levels of control to create a dramatic setting for each song, from the folksy and upbeat numbers to the fingerpicking, introspective guitar riffs, each one unique. "Literally, it was just like painting with light," he comments, adding that the "usability of the T2 on this tour was absolutely immense," and he hugely enjoyed exploring the possibilities that the fixtures offered.

The show was operated on the road by lighting director Patrick Hayes using a very organic style that required being fully in tune with the artist's mood and flow.

The T2s were operated in tungsten emulation mode by default, another feature that Janowitz loves for this particular style of performance. "It was just as if we were lighting with Lekos like we did on the first couple of acoustic tours!" he notes, adding that the silent running of the T2s was another bonus in this case.

For the HBO specials, the T2 Profile's high CRI of 95 was pivotal to achieving the right look and style together with the unit's camera-friendliness, which meant it could be used for scenic texturing and audience illumination in addition to lighting the artist.

For the Brett Goldstein show, Janowitwz used T2s on RoboSpot Systems for front and rear follow positions, with more of the units rigged on booms in the auditorium for texturing the scenic curtains, the venue walls, and around the proscenium.

For Marc Maron's special, he used T2s in conjunction with iFORTES for extra throw and punch in illuminating sections of the Harvey Theatre's famous distressed-look interior, which has been left unrestored to preserve this atmospheric venue's historic character.

Inspired by "kintsukuroi" -- the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the cracks with a mix of urushi lacquer and powdered gold, silver, or platinum, finding beauty in imperfection and embracing the history of an object -- Janowitz had custom T2 gobos made. These effectively created part of the set by projecting golden cracks around the room.

"Having the ability to mix the exact shade of gold required to make these cracks shine through both live and on camera was incredible," he says. "It really is an awesome fixture!" he concludes.