A few short years into her new career in audio, Kerrie is constantly learning and constantly busy. She has blogged about her job as FOH Engineer at several St. Louis venues including the New Line Theater and Ferring Jazz Bistro.
Living with sound – What I learned from a six-dollar app.
By: Kerrie Mondy I have a curmudgeonly hate for modern technology. I like roll-up windows and faucet handles and telling stupid electronics what to do, when, and at what volume. I avoid the automated doors at stores in favor of the pull-handle ones. I park far and walk more. I’d rather be in the driver’s seat ...Baby Steps (Pride and Progress)
By: Kerrie Mondy No matter how dedicated you are to a process, there comes a time when you lose patience with it. Have you ever stopped to wonder why that is? It doesn’t make sense, in a way. You know you’re doing the right things, for the right reasons, and you’re sure that given enough time, ...Try and Try Again
By: Kerrie Mondy One of the blessings of having the boss I have at the Bistro is that he is understanding (or at least tolerant) of my tendency to NOT do things because “they’ve always been done that way.” I am a perpetual wonderer – the proportion of my daily thoughts that begin with “What if…”, ...Smaarter Than You- Who works for who when it comes to technology
By: Kerrie Mondy In his book, “A Sense of the Mysterious”, author Alan Lightman suggests that technology has grown burdensome despite its advances because we’ve reversed the human-tech roles – whereas innovation used to strive to create purposeful tools for serving mankind, it now creates robotic nanny-masters that give us instructions and objectives, and we, in ...The Grand Opening
By: Kerrie Mondy I have learned a few things about opening a new venue. What you imagine it will be like: You will be preparing your prized show horse for his debut. You will feed him the tastiest carrots, brush his flowing mane, give him the best shoes, talk to him sweetly and train him for impeccable behavior ...I Wanna Hold Your Hand- dealing with anxiety in the face of change
By: Kerrie Mondy Growing up, I experienced the autumns of the nerdy kid – that weird blend of nervousness and excitement about starting a new school year that was half wide-eyed optimism and half knowing dread. About the end of July, I would start visualizing it – there I was, strolling into class, buck teeth straightened, ...Power Struggles – Work and Physicality
By: Kerrie Mondy Recently, I was on a crew of three working a small event at a community college. As the audio engineer on the call, one of my tasks was to set up a small lobby PA before the event and take it down once the theatre portion was underway (the first half an hour ...Spring went where, exactly?
By: Kerrie Mondy I blinked, apparently! Since my last blog, two shows opened and closed, and the Bistro, following a grand send-off, was made mincemeat in the name of renovation. Now I have (largely) the first two weeks of July to loaf, bring up my “domestic goddess” average, and plan for two more summer shows. Not a ...Demolition and Renewal
By: Kerrie Mondy My little jazz club is about to become a very big deal. A 10 million dollar deal, to be exact. But before that happens, we have to reduce it to rubble. Our final show, an all-day memorial show in honor of a Jazz St. Louis board member who passed away this winter, ...Welcome to the Cabaret – the space, the gear, and the mission!
By: Kerrie Mondy So in sharp contrast to the New Line space, Stray Dog does it shows in a breathtakingly-beautiful old church called Tower Grove Abbey. It’s gorgeous, and it makes for a really cool place to see theatre. Hearing it is another story! To say the acoustics in there are a bit weird would be ...Don't Screw it Up
By: Kerrie Mondy Rent closed at the end of March. It was a successful show by any measure. It was a labor of love. It was also a minefield, a mountain, and in the end, a “changing” experience in a lot of ways. My last week of shows there, was also my first week of tech ...Some Reassembly Required- Rent: part 5
By: Kerrie Mondy A friend of mine, who is also my gear guy for the show, was gracious enough to come see Rent and give me his opinions on how things sound. We talked for quite a while after the show about what he heard. The condensed verdict is that overall, things are in pretty good ...Taming the Pit: Part 4
By: Kerrie Mondy originally posted 3/14/14 I had a coworker tell me one time that being an audio engineer is like being a duck – you look calm and peaceful on the surface, but underneath, you’re paddling like crazy. I’ve thought of that little nugget more than once during this process of getting the audio for ...Reason! Sanity! Focus! : Part 3
By: Kerrie Mondy originally posted 2/28/14 Act 1 Sitzprobe totally…happened. And we all survived. Everything being relative, I’m filing that under “good news”. 🙂 And relativity is key when you have 16 mic’d actors onstage, who are getting their first chance to sing with the band, and the band, who are getting their first chance to play ...Geared up and Gearing up: part 2
By: Kerrie Mondy originally posted 2/19/14 So I got to check out a Rent run-through for the first time last night. WOW. These guys are killing it. The cast, the set, the music, the direction and management of the show, all brilliant. I always have this moment, watching run-throughs, where I look around at all of the talent ...Loading in Rent
Loading in Rent By: Kerrie Mondy originally posted 2/15/14 Today my rental guy and I did the lion’s share of my load-in for a small company I work fors production of “Rent”. The theater is a quirky little space. It’s a 200 seat venue with a steep seating rake and a flat, sort of triangular stage ...