If Broadway and London’s West End are the ultimate stops on theatrical career paths, then the many K-12 schools throughout the country are the first steps to reaching those stages. And the sooner those students are exposed to professional-grade theater technology, the better they’ll be able to adapt to an increasingly complex technical environment.

Boonton, New Jersey-based PureTek Group, whose tag line “Entertainment Technology to Empower Education” underscores that very mission, is making sure that elementary, middle, and high schools in its New York and New Jersey area of operations not only have great lighting for their productions but also have the kinds of lighting platforms that will ready the next generation of theatrical lighting technicians. To achieve that, they’ve been increasingly relying on fixtures from elektraLite.

“The thing that we're best known for is working in K-12 theater spaces,” says PureTek President and Co-founder Dan Litvin. “These days, those spaces certainly still include your classic auditorium design, but we’re also finding more cafeteriums, gymnatoriums, and a range of other multipurpose environments. What I particularly appreciate about elektraLite is that they provide a really beautiful ratio of price-to-quality, which assures that schools can have an impactful performance in any kind of theater, and they can use those spaces and fixtures to teach. elektraLite fixtures are brilliantly bright, have great color rendering, and do all the things that we need them to, but they’re also at a price point that nicely fits tight municipal budgets. That means that schools can afford to really play with pro-grade lighting design and use lighting as an educational platform.”

For example, in the Orange Public Schools District, the Central Elementary School in Orange, New Jersey recently installed 14 elektraLite Stingray fresnels and a dozen elektraLite Stingray Profile RGBL 200-watt ellipsoidals in its main auditorium. Meanwhile, at the Rosa L. Parks School of Fine & Performing Arts in Paterson, New Jersey, part of the Paterson Public Schools District, 16 Stingray Profiles with zoom lensing, eight Paint Can COB RGBW wash hybrids with barn doors, 24 Paint Can COB pendants, and eight Stingray Mini spot aisle lights now keep its performance space brightly and reliably illuminated.

“Now, the students are able to have a state-of-the-art theater, which is very different than what I walked into three years ago,” shares Nicolette A. Thompson, Principal of Rosa L. Parks School of Fine & Performing Arts. “When we were playing with the lights, the colors on the wall, the pictures [via gobos] that go onto the walls… the kids were amazed! It’s just overwhelming and I am so happy. My kids get an experience because they are not just looking at it – they get to go hands-on, and they get to work at the theater the way they are being taught to.”

“When you’re talking about a school system, especially a public school system, they don’t have Broadway budgets but they do want to provide great experiences for the students and technology that the students can learn on,” adds Litvin. “elektraLite fixtures are perfectly priced to meet strict budgetary constraints, but it’s not at a compromise to performance or reliability – it’s truly pro theater-quality gear. With elektraLite, the school districts we service always get a tremendous amount of value for their money.”