Audio

Stage audio preproduction

Where I grew up there were "thespians", pronounced with significant lisp. It wasn't until I met a few real actors that I realized that people in theatre weren't all manufacturing tedious, superfluous 'round-the-clock drama. So my appreciation for live theatre, once limited to a few great plays I'd read, is still quite young and expanding.

Producing audio for theatrical use is a bit like selling fertilizer — one hopes that it won't be combined with, say, gasoline. The lack of control over the circumstances of its delivery makes it imperative that recorded levels be consistent, that the frequency distribution is flat, and that one's fingers are crossed. The show's audio tech may not have much on the ball. In the case of a small touring show, he might be a different guy every night. The best can help make a wonderful night. I always make sure he has my best. What he does with it is up to him.

The Viaduct Theater "Shoppers Carried By Escalators Into The Flames"

Whitney Blakemore and Rob Whitaker run the Viaduct Theater in Chicago. They asked me to design the sound for their production of Denis Johnson's "Shoppers Carried By Escalators Into The Flames" (March 15 – April 19, 2003). The challenges included a live actor portraying a television and a dog who interacts with the other characters.

For the TV, a miked actor was concealed in a large television, and in later upstairs scenes behind a scrim. Separate camouflaged onstage speakers were used to localize the sound to the vicinity of the respective televisions.

For the dog, the script calls for a shadow on the wall. To achieve a more dynamic effect, the dog was converted to an audio character. A dear friend's small border collie, Tricket Seymour was kind enough to bark, trot, contend, growl, and yelp for nearly an hour as Charlie Seymour and I recorded him. Charlie provoked the poor little guy with synthesizer sounds that must have tickled his snout. Thanks to the script, he was rewarded in the end with some delicious chunks of chicken. Unfortunately, dogs don't take direction. So the editing phase for the dog sounds was the most labor-intensive portion of this project.

Other parts of the project included recording "televised" scenes, selecting incidental music, writing music for two lyrics in the play (both performed by the TV), and designing and assembling the sound system. All in all, a lot of work, and a lot of fun. Watching Rob and Whitney turn 100 pages into a nuanced live production was inspiring.

Hoopes/Katz "Attendance Is Mandatory"

Melanie Hoopes (also from the original "ED" ensemble) contacted me the day of dress rehearsal for the Chicago run of this hilarious, self-incriminating piece about two ambitious would-be teachers who say and do all the wrong things — and never completely realize the societal menace they embody. She carried with her a jumble of medium-quality cassettes representing the recorded sound effects and theme music for the show. The major challenge was to quickly collect these to disk, clean them up a bit, and write a CD. I managed to pull it together that afternoon, so that she and Lauren could concentrate on their polishing their cleverly funny show. It was a pleasure to help these two ladies, whom I'd paid to see perform many times before. I enjoyed the show at the Viaduct Theater on three consecutive nights, gratis.

See and hear Melanie Hoopes sing on Paladin Productions' site!

Sabrina Ross "Numb"

This is a recorded soundtrack for a live solo performance by dancer Sabrina Ross. A major challenge was the composition of a realistic cacophonous city traffic scene. Conflicting schedules and Sabrina's unfortunate ankle injury delayed completion. Sabrina had even moved to California before she heard the traffic scene. She wrote to tell me how much she liked it. It's a shame, but I never saw it performed. Such is life.