At the
Pageant we use
apron strips and just light the main from below. Next door at the Laguna Moulton Playhouse, they use six or eight lekos on the
balcony rail, all soft focused to do a
wash on the main. I'm not sure if they
gel them or not.
For those of you who may not know what Phil means by
apron strips, this is two twelve ft. strip lights, made in
house from aluminum raceways and medium screw lamp bases in a wood
masking frame so you don't see the lamps from the audience. It's a set-up that you don't see very often in more
conventional stage shows. Their use as
curtain warmers is secondary to their primary purpose as one
element of our set lighting. For the 2008
Pageant, I also hung a 19 degree Source 4 from our mid
house right lighting
truss with, if I remember correctly, an R-12
gel. We had a yellow curtain for our 75th. season. Our two niche stages, on either side of the main
stage used 50 degree Source 4 Jr.'s mounted on the
down stage wall of the
orchestra pit with the same
gel that I used in the 19 degree.
Now, with all that said, there really is no single, "right way" to do
curtain warmers. I've seen them from the front with a
gobo wash, striped from the side with pars, and, of course, lit with
foot lights in addition to anything else that has been listed by other posters.
Oh, and Phil, the
venue next door dropped Moulton from their name at least fifteen years ago.

Ten years ago they removed their
proscenium arch and replaced their curtain pipes and
dead hung electrics with a
grid structure. I was part of the demolition crew on that project. For most of their shows these days, they don't even have a curtain to warm.