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Empowering the Next Generation of Women in Audio

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Starting A Show

In any normal year, early spring is when the staffing process begins for tours going out in the fall. You probably won’t have a contract in hand yet, but your resume has gone off to designers and production companies, or (if you’re currently on tour) you’ve had a conversation with your design team or production manager about the shows going into production, and what they might have in mind for you.

However, there are still months before you’ll hit the shop to build a new show, and longer until you’re in the venue to tech it. So spring and summer become the perfect time to start learning a new show so you can give yourself a running start. Right now, conversations center around maybes: someone has your resume on their desk; they’d like to inquire about your availability for a possible project; we’d like to see if you might be a good fit. That sort of language. At this point, nothing is for certain, but I’ll start in on some cursory research for the show I’m under consideration for. This mostly involves cyber stalking the show: searching YouTube for Tony Award or press event performances, Googling pictures of the production, and listening to the most recent cast album or recording of the show.

On Official Offer

Conversations use more concrete terms: yes, we’d like you to do the show; we’re sending your resume to the production manager; you should hear from this person soon, etc. At this point, the show’s soundtrack becomes the new underscore of my life. I cannot stress enough how important it is to listen to the show. Replicating the sound of it is your job, so the more familiar you are with it, the better. Plus, knowing what’s happening gives you a solid foundation to start tech and make intelligent mixing choices.

Finally, once I have an official offer I can start my formal prep. At this point I ask for a packet of information from the designers or production consisting of: a script (preferably a mixing script if it isn’t a brand new show), any audio recording that might be available, and a console file (again, this is if there’s a version of the show currently running).

The Script

The script is the basis for most of my paperwork. The audio recording hopefully gives me the full show to listen to, including dialogue. The console file lets me dive into the structure of the physical show as well as providing details about programming that might not be clear in the script.

From the script, I’ll build an initial set of paperwork starting with my own mixing script. Even if I get a complete, annotated mix script, I will always make my own for two reasons:

#1. I like my formatting. I have a system with color-coded notes that is easy for me to read, and I can put page breaks in convenient places. Plus, re-entering cues and notes means that I know exactly where each one goes.

#2. It’s another opportunity to get the show in my head. I always re-type the script which forces me to go over every single word of the show. Usually multiple times with annotations and proofreading.

In conjunction with the script, I’ll do some additional paperwork and make a spreadsheet to document (or for a new show, create) DCA assignments. This has the basic information of how many console scenes are in the show, what the name of each DCA fader is in each scene, and which specific mics are assigned on a given fader (if it’s not obvious, such as faders labeled chorus, altos, or one-off solo lines). This helps while annotating my script if I have a question where a cue needs to go or who’s in what scene, and becomes a quick reference for programming the console when I get to tech.

This is where the console file can come in handy. Most consoles have an offline editor that you can use to open it on your computer and look around to see how the show is laid out. When I’m building paperwork, I’ll double-check the file if I have questions about who exactly is singing which part in a scene.

Practice

Once I have an annotated script, my basic paperwork, and the audio recording, I’ll start to put the mix into practice. I use two methods, one that requires my practice board and another I can do pretty much anywhere.

Using my practice board (a set of faders that don’t control anything which you can find versions on casecraft.com, er3designs.com, or I, personally, have a custom board made by Scott Kuker), I’ll grab my script and the recording and move through the mix of the show. I’ll go over difficult transitions or fast sections multiple times to start developing some muscle memory, and if I’m having trouble, I’ll play around and see if there’s a more efficient way to mix the scene. That might be adjusting the DCA programming or changing which hand covers which faders. On Les Mis and Saigon, those shows are almost entirely sung-through, and there’s always music. So I used my right hand on the orchestra faders for the majority of the show and did the vocal choreography with my left hand. Practicing for those two shows involved figuring out where I needed both hands for vocals and should switch my right hand from covering the orchestra faders to assisting with dialogue. Mean Girls on the other hand has dialogue scenes with no underscoring, so I spent more time using both hands-on vocal faders and then shifting back over to the band for songs.

The second method I use is something I call pointing through the show. I can practice with this technique anywhere with just a piece of paper (the aforementioned DCA breakdown paperwork), and the audio recording of the show. For this, I’ll listen to the show, pointing along on the paper to who’s mic should be up at the moment. This tests how well I’ve memorized the show because there’s no way to hide if I can’t point to who’s talking. Then I’ll go over any problem scenes with my script. Most often these are dialogue scenes where it’s constantly switching between several different people or scenes with a lot of one-liners. Pretty much anything that might cause you to skip around on the faders if there’s no good way to do typewriter programming.

I started practicing this way because I got into the habit early in my career of working to get off the book as soon as possible. Pointing through the show gives me a head start on memorizing the show and I can usually put my script away a couple of weeks after tech. I find I pay better attention to how the show is sounding when I don’t have my head in my script. Other people prefer the security of having the script in front of them to reference, even if they don’t necessarily need it. It’s purely a personal preference, but you should always make sure you are comfortable and confident that you truly have the show memorized before you completely put your script away.

*    *    *

But what happens when you don’t have all this time to learn a show? The prep process I’ve outlined can take weeks or even months. What happens if you get thrown into a show at the last minute or won’t even get a script until a couple of days before tech? Or what if it’s a short run where you just can’t justify months of preparation?

In this case, I do some basic preparation but focus on making the notes in my script are clear since I’ll likely be sight-reading it in tech. I won’t retype my entire script, but instead use the limited prep time to make sure annotations and notes are easy to follow and my fader or DCA layout is as logical and simple as possible. If I have time to physically practice, I’ll focus on the complicated parts to make sure they’re efficient. I’ll always make and print out a DCA breakdown so I have a quick reference for programming the console.

Every bit of preparation helps, no matter how much or little time I have, and I’ve never met a designer that wasn’t happy to give me whatever they could to help me learn the show. So don’t be afraid to ask for materials, your designer will appreciate your initiative and everyone (yourself included!) will love it when you’re self-sufficient in tech.

Practicing Proactivity

 

Have you ever had a little voice in your head whispering that you don’t know what you’re doing? Ever looked around the room with a sinking feeling that you’re the least qualified person there? In small doses, these impulses can push us to improve, to get help and learn from those who’ve come before us. However, when that mentality seeps into our lives and latches on for months, years, or even decades, we find ourselves faced with the far more problematic Imposter Syndrome.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is the best representation I’ve found to conceptualize the progression that most people follow during their careers. As you can see, it’s not a linear road to travel, even in its most simplified form. As 2021 continues, and we hopefully start to make our way back to work, many of us are facing the discouraging outlook of a year or more of lost time in our careers. Most of us will have to take a few steps backward before we can go forward in rebuilding our professional confidence.

When I started my career I was excited: I’d wanted to tour since I learned that was an actual job and I was ready to hit the ground running. Instead, the ground hit me. I loved my crew and running shows and seeing the country, but there was a learning curve (like with any new job), and I was suddenly very much aware of just how much I didn’t know. Imposter Syndrome hit hard at that stage in my life and turned my learning curve into a confidence free-fall from my Summit of Stupid.

For such a sharp plunge on that graph it starts out deceptively small: a little voice in the back of your head harping on every mistake. That voice monopolizes your attention when you realize you’re making someone wait while you finish a project. It whispers, “they’re right” when you’re told, “It’s not something I can teach you if you don’t understand it.” These little things build on each other and grow until you wonder how you were even hired in the first place.

I spent most of my time as an A2 caught in a loop: I felt horrible at my job so I figured I should quit, but I’d be just as horrible at anything else, so I should just stay where I was, but I felt so horrible at my job…. That cycle went on for years before I found a way out. There were days I was depressed and didn’t know why, but also days I went out with the crew after a tough load in and laughed so hard that I squeaked. Once I was told that my brand of book-smart intelligence was good for nothing more than being a “party trick.” Other times I had shows I mixed where everything clicked and I fell in love with my job all over again.

Imposter Syndrome is a toxic relationship with yourself. It keeps you guessing at every turn: constantly off balance and convinced that the world is waiting for the right moment to pounce. The thing is, everyone other person around you is dealing with those exact same feelings. So, the good news is you’re not alone.

The even better news is this isn’t permanent. Imposter Syndrome is effective because it puts you on defense and instills a reactive state of mind. You no longer trust yourself to give an accurate assessment of your own skills. Instead, you take your cues from the words and reactions of those around you, and always give extra weight to the negative because it agrees with that little voice in your head. After all, why should you even try to improve when people who know so much more than you have told you you’re hopeless?

The best way to quiet that voice is proactivity. In a proactive mindset, you dictate your own self-image first and all other information is evaluated, but not treated as fact purely by default.

One of the best proactive moves I made was transitioning from an A2 to A1. Unknowingly, that was my final major step out of my Valley. Three years up the Slope, I was in tech for Saigon when a colleague told me he was worried that I didn’t realize how hard the show was to mix.

Reactively, my self-esteem would have curled up in the fetal position and that voice would have whispered what an idiot I was to think that I was even halfway decent at my job.

Proactively, I raised an eyebrow at a comment made out of stress-induced worry. After all, I’d spent as much time as I could working on my script, learning the show, and practicing the mix. While there would inevitably be a few mistakes, I had come prepared and I knew I could handle them.

Practicing proactivity gives you a solid foundation to approach a project or learn a new skill. And just like Imposter Syndrome, it starts small. It’s taking the time to relabel a cable instead of having to wrack your brain for its name every single load in. It’s refining the way you explain a project to the local crew so they don’t have to ask you to clarify the directions seven times. It’s signing up for a class or a workshop that the little voice says you don’t know nearly enough to attend.

These seemingly insignificant steps give you the building blocks for the rest of your career. Now, I’m particularly efficient at loading in and out shows because back then, in any proactive moment I had, I made one tiny tweak after another. Sometimes it was looming the end of a cable bundle a different way or even making a whole new loom for a special project. Other times it was pre-marking a tape measure to make instructions less complicated or taking pictures of an efficient case pack so it was easier to duplicate. Bit by bit the small fixes accumulated to make me more efficient, clearer, and more consistent.

Even after two years on my way out of my Valley, it wasn’t until the tech for Saigon where it actually hit home that I didn’t feel like an Imposter anymore. That month was challenging to say the least, partly because I was faced with many of my former triggers: not having all the answers, people getting frustrated, negative comments, and more.

That voice started whispering again, but when it did, I realized that I hadn’t heard more than a momentary peep from that insidious little thing in all of my previous two years as an A1. Without those triggers, that voice couldn’t sustain itself.

I was not the common denominator.

At that moment, I had the choice to drudge up my old, reactive habits or stick to my new, hard-won, proactive ones. Tech was still tiring and stressful, but I was better able to identify and mitigate my triggers. I did my best to address problems and solve what was in my control or ask for help with what wasn’t. If someone got frustrated I did my best to talk with them to see if there was an underlying issue. There was no way to avoid every frustration, but I could make sure I didn’t add to them unnecessarily.

If you find yourself with your own negative little voice, practice being proactive whenever you can. Even if it seems like it’s pointless, do it. One baby step at a time. Also, make a point to keep mementos. Did you have a great day, mix an amazing show, solve a tough problem? Write it down. When someone sends you a note or text or email telling you how amazing you are, save it, screenshot it, flag it. If you have a bad day, pull those out to remind you that this is temporary.

Lastly, find your kindred spirits: people who aren’t afraid to be honest when you need a swift kick, but will always have your back. (It helps if they work in the same industry and understand your world.)  Mine are my former A2’s, current dear friends, and the very people I ask to proofread everything I send to this blog.

Rachel, Mark, and Dan were with each with me for a year of my first three tours while I navigated a new chapter in my career as an A1. Touring with someone creates a unique bond in itself, but each of these three have gone well above the call of duty time and time again to offer support, help, and motivation anytime I’ve needed it.

It’s not an easy road out of Imposter Syndrome, but the only way out is through. Keep in mind that you are not alone, grab a friend, and do your best to get a little better, one baby step at a time.

 

The Positive Side of Negative Visualization

Stagehands often joke that we aren’t paid to run a show track. We’re really there to fix problems and (on tour) load the show in and out. With a little bit of direction, anyone can follow a track: page a curtain, swap a microphone or move something from one place to another. You hire a prop master because she has specialized knowledge and can rebuild or repair a prop that breaks or get an audio technician because she actually knows the components of the system and can suss out a problem.

Troubleshooting, especially mid-show, is mentally demanding. You have to run through all possible scenarios, eliminate them down to the most likely culprit, and execute the fix or workaround all within the space of moments. Backstage, this comes in the form of video, mics, or com malfunctioning, usually armed with all the information of, “This sounds weird, can you fix it?” as someone points to their beltpack.

When you’re out at FOH, your problems usually center around a glitch with the console, something making a noise that it’s not supposed to in the house, or trying to work around mic issue as the A2 works to fix things. As always, this is while mixing the show, because you’re a position that has a specialized track, so you actually are paid to run the show.

While fixing problems on the fly, even in non-catastrophic situations like switching from a sweat-out main mic to a clean backup, your reaction time matters. It’s the difference between missing a word or an entire line as you think through the process of which channel you have to go to or which page of user-assigned macros you need to be on.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our brains didn’t need quite as much time to work through problems? Well, (good news!) with a little mental exercise, it doesn’t.

Have you ever noticed it feels like it takes longer to walk to a new place than it does to walk back from it? You’re following the same route at the same pace, but something feels like it could be two completely different trips. What’s actually happening is that, on the way there, your brain is processing new information, which takes just the tiniest bit longer than when you’re walking back and now all your brain has to do is register a familiar sight.

The same thing can happen when you troubleshoot. If you’ve already worked through and fixed a kind of problem, you already know how to react and your brain can simply reference information instead of creating an entirely new plan from scratch. And it gets better: you don’t even have to physically experience a situation for your brain to pick up cues faster.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the term “Positive Visualization” as it’s a go-to in most guides to improve your happiness or your outlook on life. By all means, visualizing mixing a perfect show is wonderful, and can be a benefit all on its own, but we’re going to take a look at the opposite, but closely related, “Negative Visualization.”

I first heard the term in the podcast episode “Don’t Accentuate the Positive” of The Happiness Lab series. (I highly recommended the series, especially if you have any interest in psychology, plus that particular episode has a fascinating story about Michael Phelps.) While listening, I found I’d developed a habit of negative visualization over the past several years without realizing that that was what I was doing.

A few months into a run, I usually reach a point where I’m comfortable with the show and the company has settled into a routine, so everyone can relax just a bit. At this point, I’d start to play a “what if” game. If I noticed a cue would be easy to fire at the wrong time if I wasn’t paying attention, I’d walk through the process of what would happen if I did make that mistake. I’d make it my own mental exercise, going through what chain reaction that cue might set off and what specific process I’d have to use to recover from the mistake.

That’s what negative visualization is: mentally walking through a problem scenario. The benefit is that in a figurative world, you can also work through multiple solutions to that problem until you find the best one. So, in the event you find yourself in that situation, your mind reacts faster to decide on a course of action because it’s already done it, even if the trial run was just in your head.

I had an actress who occasionally sweated out her main mic, but always at the same point in the show. It became common enough that I made a point key up the macro page to the one with her backup shortcut if I knew the backstage area was warmer than usual, or it was just a hot day. In some instances, she would sweat out even in colder climates, and even for those, I was so used to the combination of buttons to switch to her back up, it was like I had my own cheat code which took the work of moments with minimal thought.

In another experience, I had the main fader bank on the console reset mid-show. I had a freeze of an “uh oh” moment, then switched to the backup engine. That same glitch has happened a couple of times over the course of a few years, but even with hundreds of shows between occurrences, the second time it happened, I didn’t even have that initial pause, my brain was able to recognize a similar situation and my hand immediately moved to switch engines. Now, if something happens on the console, I automatically default to the instinct to reach for the Engine A/B button. As my body is reacting, my mind can process if I should actually change or not so, if I need to, my hand’s already there, if not, I can pull back.

This kind of mental exercise is something that’s becoming more important given the current state of everything.

The news that Broadway and most large events won’t come back this year is demoralizing, and all of us face the hard reality of deciding on a course of action to either get us through the short term or consider changes on a grander scale. But the challenges won’t stop there. As the entertainment industry focuses on its eventual reopening, we’re looking to do it as we create a more inclusive, knowledgeable, and healthier environment, especially for the BIPOC and marginalized artists in our communities. For many white people, that requires us to be activists as well as advocates for our fellow technicians, musicians, and actors when we get back to work. For those of us not used to speaking up or purposely exposing ourselves to confrontational situations, we know it’s necessary if intimidating task. Especially so in workplaces where off-hand racist or sexist comments were previously considered “just kidding around” and bringing attention to them might have been met with “just ignore it,” “it’s too much of a hassle, and it’ll piss everyone off,” or “well, what did you expect?”

As we face all these problems and more, negative visualization can be a helpful tool to reevaluate and rearrange our future plans or make an effort, not only to step out of our comfort zones but to actively do the hard work of de-programming years and even decades of ingrained behaviors. If there’s a silver lining in all this, we’ll get plenty of opportunities this year to retrain our brains and mentally practice constructive reactions as we head towards getting back to work.

 

Striving for Excellence

 

I love to show this picture when people ask what my job is like, especially in tech. It’s from one of our first previews of the Miss Saigon National Tour: I’m at front of house (FOH) with Mick Potter and Adam Fisher, the sound designer, and the UK sound associate respectively, next to me on the console. The executive producer, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, watches the show on the end of the row, keeping a sharp eye out for any aspect that might need a bit of polish. On my other side is the US sound associate, Josh Hummel, who’s taking the picture, so it’s a full house in every sense of the phrase. There’s nothing like mixing a scene for maybe the third or fourth time with multiple people — all of whom have the ability to fire you — within a five-foot radius. And while you’re mixing, the producer is making suggestions to the designer who is making adjustments and talking with the associate, who is also making adjustments while giving you notes to help you refine your mix. Oh, and please, don’t miss any pick-ups.

It doesn’t stop once you leave tech. Granted, FOH becomes less crowded once the directors, producers, and designers are gone, but there are now thousands of people in the seats and they also expect perfection. They will happily be your harshest critics if they feel like the experience isn’t up to snuff, and you don’t have much of a safety net: actors can cover when they forget something, but there’s no way to ad-lib a fader up after you’ve missed the line.

Until you’ve done a few shows and learn to trust in your abilities as a mixer, it’s easy to let your nerves get the better of you. This is a common problem in many careers; a musician has to be “on” for an audition, an athlete has one chance to break a record or win a medal, a businesswoman has one meeting to nail a presentation. However, there is one major difference. Those jobs have one thing: one project, one match, one audition. As a mixer, it’s every day, 8 shows a week, week after week that you have to spend at a level of peak performance.

Mixing has and always will be a high-pressure job, but if you’re able to accept that and work with it instead of fighting it, you and your blood pressure will thank you. Sometimes it’s as easy as finding a scene or a song in the show that you can jam out to or get carried along with the sweep of the music. Other times it’s finding some way to let go of adrenaline or calm yourself down before your start. I know people who will take a walk around the theatre if they need to work off some nerves. Personally, I like a game or an easy crossword puzzle that keeps me occupied and gets my brain going, but I can put aside at a moment’s notice.

Most of the time, the stress comes from falling into the trap of expecting perfection. Achieving a “perfect” show depends on millions of variables and is therefore close to impossible. I was listening to a podcast called “How To! with Charles Duhigg” where he had Dr. Green, a peak performance psychologist, talk about dealing with stress, specifically related to performance. Green said at one point, “There’s a difference between perfectionism and striving for excellence.” That phrase resonated with me and my approach to mixing. Mixers rely on a unique ability: they have to constantly strive and expect nothing less than complete accuracy, but if they do make a mistake, they must also have the capability to forgive themselves and move past it almost immediately, otherwise, it can derail the rest of the show. “Striving for excellence” is exactly what we do. You walk up to the board with the commitment to do you very best every single time, but allow yourself enough grace to acknowledge your mistakes if they happen and move on.

Sometimes that commitment is your best defense against nerves. If you bring that mindset of striving for excellence every time you step up to the console, it’s just another show. It doesn’t matter if a producer with a net worth of upwards of a billion is pacing around FOH, or if it’s just you left to do your thing: you always mix the same show. I’ve seen the opposite with the actors a lot. There are always a few that consistently do warm-ups, but when a creative or someone important comes to the show, suddenly the dressing room hallways are filled with a cacophony of vocal exercises. Backstage you can see the ones that have been doing the show they’re supposed to the entire time: they’re calm and collected; conditioned by weeks of practice. Those who choose to mark their singing for most shows, then decide to go all out for this show are the ones huffing and puffing; they didn’t realize that it was so much work to dance and sing like they’re supposed to. (Plus it’s an absolute treat for the mixer to have to play “Guess the Level” when actors decide to actually sing out for the part they never do, or option up an octave instead of the normal note.)

When mistakes happen—whether due to surprises or not—one of the biggest, and least productive, traps a mixer can fall into is dwelling on that mistake. Your brain only has so much bandwidth to devote to a task at hand and, as soon as you start using up processing power to berate yourself over a missed pick up, you limit what ability your brain has left to focus on the show. Believe me, you’ll have plenty of time to beat yourself up when the show is done if you want to.

The best method I’ve found is to acknowledge it. My involuntary reaction ends up being a sharp head jerk and a pissed off grunt, but then I put myself right back in the show. Take a moment, but only that, then focus on the next line, the next band move, the next scene. Don’t give yourself an opportunity to linger. It’s not easy at first, because that’s exactly what you’ll want to do, but with enough repetition, it will become a habit.

Once the show is over, then you can do a replay of what you missed. It shouldn’t be to blame yourself but to do a technical analysis and take stock of what happened in the moment. Did you grab the wrong fader? Were you focusing on something or someone else? Did you lose your place and fumbled while getting back on track? When you know what caused the mistake, you can take steps to help yourself the next time.

One of my more glaring mistakes was the press opening of the tour for Miss Saigon. It was a tense, quiet scene between Chris and his wife, Ellen, and I grabbed the wrong fader and, instead of Ellen comforting Chris, another woman was loud and proud talking offstage about her dress for the opening party. Again, mentally curse, and move on. After the show, I highlighted that line and made sure I absolutely could NOT miss the fader number was in my script. That served as a reminder for me every time to make sure I threw the right fader.

On a less obvious note, in Mean Girls, one of the lines changed from when I first learned the show, and “I noticed you failed your last few quizzes. Is everything okay?” became just, “I noticed you failed your last few quizzes.” For some reason that the last sentence was so ingrained in my head, that there were multiple times where I forgot it was cut and had to scramble to get the next fader up in time. To solve that, I made a concentrated effort to consciously remind myself to bring up the next fader on the word “few” and, with show after show of that constant thought, it eventually became habit.

In both cases, the mistakes (or close calls) were singular events, blips that didn’t snowball into larger catastrophes, but being able to keep your cool under pressure can help you have less of those blips in the first place. When Les Mis had the official press opening for the tour, it was just like the Saigon preview at FOH, only more people. Designers from every department, directors, production management, producers, you name it, if there was an open space, it wasn’t empty long. And despite their best efforts, they’re never completely quiet: pencils scratching on notepads, fingers tapping notes on tablets, whispers back and forth. Even with all the distractions, I focused on the job at hand and had a solid, clean show. Afterward, one of the production managers told me a few people had mentioned to him that they were impressed that I could be so calm with so many eyes peering over my shoulder. You don’t always get the feedback, but people are watching and they’ll notice how you handle yourself in a stressful situation.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to walk into every show with clean feet, or “leave your baggage at the door.” Did you miss a line or two in the last show? Were the dynamics not what you know they should have been? Did you have an absolutely flawless performance? Great. That was the last show. This is a new day and a new show. Come to it without resting on your laurels or harping on yourself for the mistakes of yesterday; each new show is another chance to get it right, another chance to feel that satisfying rush as everything comes together. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes the stress of our jobs can discourage aspiring mixers before they even have the chance to learn how to master it. Remember to be patient and show yourself some grace, especially when you’re learning. Good things take time.

 

How to Make Tech Easier: Be Prepared

 

In my last blog, I talked about what goes into mixing a Broadway-style musical, and there’s a lot to do. For almost every production you work on, you’ll be expected to mix the show mostly line-by-line with some dynamics and (hopefully) few mistakes from day one. Having a smart layout for your DCAs and a clear script can be the difference between an incredibly stressful or a delightfully smooth tech process.

Once you have the script, first things first: read it. The entire way through. If you don’t have a good idea of what’s going on from the beginning, the rest of the process is going to be guesswork at best. Next, go through the script again, this time with an eye out for where scenes might go; either where a natural scene change happens in the script, or where there are more actors talking than you have faders. (The number of DCAs you’ll have is usually 8 or 12, determined by the console you’re using. DCAs are faders in a programmable bank that can change per scene so you only have the mics you need or can consolidate a group, like a chorus, down to one or two faders.)

There are two common ways of programming DCA’s. The first is a “typewriter” style where you move down the faders in order for each line and if you run out of faders, you take a cue and go back to the first fader, then repeat (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, CUE, 1, 2, 3, etc). This is very useful in larger scenes where characters have shorter one-off lines and you quickly move from one character to the next. The second approach is where each principal actress and actor is assigned to a constant fader (Dorothy is always on 1, Scarecrow on 2, Tin Man on 3, Lion on 4, etc), and will always be on that fader when they have dialogue. In shows where you mostly deal with a handful of reoccurring characters, this is friendlier to your brain as muscle memory brings you back to the same place for the same person each time.

As an example, let’s say we have 8 faders for dialogue and take a look at “The Attack on Rue Plumet” from Les Mis (if you want to listen along, it’s the dialogue from the 2010 Cast album for the 25th Anniversary production):

 

A typewriter approach to mixing would assign DCAs in increasing order each time a new character speaks (first lines are highlighted):

By the time we get to Marius, we’re almost out of faders, and there’s a natural change in the scene when Thenardier’s gang runs off and Valjean enters, so it works to take a cue between those two lines and start over with the DCAs.

But Les Mis is an ensemble show that’s centered around a core group of principals, so assigning characters to designated fader numbers is another option. If we’re mapping out the entire show, we find that Valjean, as the protagonist, ends up on (1), Marius, the main love interest, on (2),  and Cosette and Eponine can alternate on (3) as they interact with Marius most frequently, but usually aren’t in scenes together. Thenardier could go a couple of places: he leads in scenes like “Master of the House” and “Dog Eats Dog,” but in scenes with the other principals, he typically takes a secondary role, so we’ll put him on (4) in this scene. The chorus parts, Montparnasse, Claquesous, Brujon, and Babet (first lines are still highlighted below), are easiest to put in typewriter style after Thenardier since they only appear once or twice in the show, so don’t have a designated fader number.

The mix script for this approach would look like this:

 

Here, Thenardier (4) is still right next to his cronies (5), (6), (7), and (8), but is also right next to Eponine (3) for their bits of back-and-forth. The scene change still ends up after Marius’s line, as it’s a natural place to take it, and Cosette replaces Eponine on (3), getting ready for the next scene “One Day More,” where Marius (2) and Cosette (3) will be singing a duet, with Eponine (4) separated, singing her own part.

With this particular scene, neither approach is perfect, as all the characters have multiple lines (and not in the same order every time), but either one would be a legitimate way to set it up.

Typically, you’ll use a combination of both approaches over the course of a show, with one that you default to for scenes that could go either way, like the example. Personally, I like to use a spreadsheet where I can see the entire show and get an overview of what the mix will look like. This makes it easier to spot patterns or adjust potentially awkward changes in assignments. (The colors for major characters in the examples are just visual aids that I added for this blog.)

For example, here’s a layout that’s mostly typewriter. Characters may stay on the same fader for connected scenes, but overall the assignments go in order of lines in a scene:

 

As another example, there is a core group of four actors that are in almost the entire show and a couple of reoccurring supporting roles, so using a designated fader for those characters works much better. There are times that the pattern breaks for a scene or two to switch to typewriter, but largely everyone stays in the same place:

 

Once you have the DCAs planned out, you can start to format a mixing script. The first example from Les Misérables gives a basic version of that: putting numbers next to lines for the DCA assignments, notes for where cues will go, but you will also eventually add in-band moves, effect levels, and other notes.

Personally, I like the majority of my information to be in the left margin, and if I have enough time I’ll retype the script into my own format so I can mess with it as much as I want. My scripts look like this (I thoroughly enjoy color coding!):

 

Each show might have slight differences, but the broad strokes are always the same: cues are in lavender boxes with a blue border (for cues taken off a cue light, the colors are inverted, so blue box with lavender border), band moves are in purple, vocal verb is green, red are mic notes as well as DCA numbers, and yellow is anything that I need to pay attention to or should check.

Here’s another example and an explanation from Allison Ebling from her script for The Bodyguard tour (she’s currently the Head Audio on the 1st National Tour of Anastasia):

 

“One is the top of show sequence which had to be verbally called and on Qlite due to the fact that it was a bit jarring for audiences. (LOUD gunshots and all the lights went off without warning, our preshow announce was played at the scheduled start and downbeat was 5 [minutes] after.) 

The other is a sequence in the second act where I took one cue with the SM, and the rest were on visual. It also has my favorite Q name ever… ‘Jesus Loves a Gunshot.’

I also like reading my script left to right, so I usually end up reformatting them that way.”

And another example and explanation from Mackenzie Ellis (currently the Head Audio on the 1st National Tour of Dear Evan Hansen):

“Here are some from my DEH tour script [Left], and some from the Something Rotten [Right] first national tour, both of which I am/was the A1 for. Both scripts were adapted from the Broadway versions, created by Jarrett Krauss and Cassy Givens, respectively. 

Notes on my formatting:

 

As you can see, there are different styles and endless ways to customize a mixing script. How you arrange or put notations in your script is purely a personal preference, and will constantly evolve as you continue to work on shows. As a note: not only should you be able to read your script, but to be truly functional, it should be clear enough that an emergency cover can execute a passable show in a pinch.

At this point, you have your script ready and a solid plan for how the show will run. If there’s still time before tech, you can start practicing. Practice boards are becoming more and more popular and are incredibly helpful to work out the choreography of a mix. Casecraft makes one that is modeled after the DiGiCo SD7 fader bank. Scott Kuker (most recently the mixer for Be More Chill on Broadway) made a custom, travel-size board for me a couple of years ago that I absolutely love. It immediately became an integral part of learning the mix for both me and my assistants!

I highly recommend getting one if you’re career plans involve mixing theatrical shows, but if you don’t have one, there’s the tried and true option of setting up coins to push as makeshift faders (pennies tend to be a good size, but some prefer quarters). Whatever method you use, the point is to start getting a sense of muscle memory and timing as you work through the show. It also gives you an opportunity to work through complicated or quick scenes, so you get a feel for the choreography or can even look at adjusting the DCA programming to make it easier.

After prepping a script and getting in some practice, walking up to the console in tech doesn’t seem as daunting. If you’re well prepared, you’re able to keep up and adapt to changes faster. Plus, if you’re self-sufficient at the board, your designers can trust you to mix the show and take more time to focus on their job of getting the system and the show the way they want it, which will help you in the long run.

 

More Than Line-by-Line

 

Going Beyond the Basics of Mixing

When I started mixing shows in high school—and I use the term “mixing” loosely—I had no idea what I was doing. Which is normal for anyone’s first foray into a new subject, but the problem was that no one else knew either. My training was our TD basically saying, “here’s the board, plug this cable in here, and that’s the mute button,” before he had to rush off to put out another fire somewhere else.

Back then, there were no Youtube videos showing how other people mixed. No articles describing what a mixer’s job entailed. (Even if there were, I wouldn’t have known what terms to put in a Google search to find them!) So I muddled through show by show, and they sounded good enough that I kept going. From high school to a theme park, college shows to local community theatres, and finally eight years on tour, I’ve picked up a new tip or trick or philosophy every step along the way. After over a decade of trial and error, I’m hoping this post can be a jump start for someone else staring down the faders of a console wondering “okay, now what?”

Every sound design and system has a general set of goals for a musical: all the lines and music are clear and the level is enough to be audible but isn’t painfully loud. These parameters make a basic mix.

For Broadway-style musicals, we do what’s called “line-by-line” mixing. This means when someone is talking, her fader comes up and, when she’s done, her fader goes back down, effectively muting her. For example: if actresses A and B are talking, A’s fader is up for her line, then just before B is about to begin her line, B’s fader comes up and A’s fader goes down (once the first line is finished). So the mixer is constantly working throughout the show, bringing faders up and taking them out as actors start and stop talking. Each of these is called a “pickup” and there will be several hundred of them in most shows. Having only the mics open that are necessary for the immediate dialogue helps to eliminate excess noise from the system and prevent audio waves from multiple mics combining (creating phase cancellation or comb filtering which impairs clarity).

You may have noticed that I’ve only talked about using faders so far, and not mute buttons. Using faders allows you to have more control over the mix because the practice of “mixing” with mute buttons assumes that the actors will say each of their lines in the entire show at the same level, which is not realistic. From belting to whispering and everything in between, actors have a dynamic vocal range and faders are far more conducive than mute buttons to make detailed adjustments in the moment. However, when mixing with faders, you have to make sure that your movements are clean and concise. Constantly doing a slow slide into pickups sounds sloppy and may lose the first part of a line, so faders should be brought up and down quickly. (Unless a slow push is an effect or there is a specific reason for it, yes, there are always exceptions.)

So, throughout the show, the mixer is bringing faders up and down for lines, making small adjustments within lines to make sure that the sound of the show is consistent with the design. Yet, that’s only one part of a musical. The other is, obviously, the music. Here the same rules apply. Usually, the band or orchestra is assigned to VCAs or grouped so it’s controlled by one or two faders. When they’re not playing, the faders should be down, and when they are, the mixer is making adjustments with the faders to make sure they stay at the correct level.

The thing to remember at this point is that all these things are happening at the same time. You’re mixing line by line, balancing actor levels with the music, making sure everything stays in an audible, but not eardrum-ripping range. This is the point where you’ve achieved the basic mechanics and can produce an adequate mix. When put into action, it looks something like this:

 

 

A clip from a mix training video for the 2019 National Touring Company of Miss Saigon.

 

But we want more than just an adequate mix, and with a solid foundation under your belt, you can start to focus on the details and subtleties that will continue to improve those skills. Now, full disclosure, I was a complete nerd when I was young (I say that like I’m not now…) and I spent the better part of my childhood reading any book I could get my hands on. As an adult, that has translated into one of my greatest strengths as a mixer: I get stories. Understanding the narrative and emotions of a scene are what help me make intelligent choices of how to manipulate the sound of a show to best convey the story.

Sometimes it’s leaving an actress’s mic up for an ad-lib that has become a routine, or conversely, taking a mic out quicker because that ad-lib pulls your attention from more important information. It could be fading in or out a mic so that an entrance or exit sounds more natural or giving a punchline just a bit of a push to make sure that the audience hears it clearly.

Throughout the entire show, you are using your judgment to shape the sound. Paying attention to what’s going on and the choices the actors are making will help you match the emotion of a scene. Ominous fury and unadulterated rage are both anger. A low chuckle and an earsplitting cackle are both laughs. However, each one sounds completely different. As the mixer, you can give the orchestra an extra push as they swell into an emotional moment, or support an actress enough so that her whisper is audible through the entire house but doesn’t lose its intimacy.

Currently, I’m touring with Mean Girls, and towards the end of the show, Ms. Norbury (the Tina Fey character for those familiar with the movie) gets to cut loose and belt out a solo. Usually, this gets some appreciative cheers from the audience because it’s Norbury’s first time singing and she gets to just GO for it. As the mixer, I help her along by giving her an extra nudge on the fader, but I also give some assistance beforehand. The main character, Cady, sings right before her in a softer, contemplative moment and I keep her mic back just a bit. You can still hear her clearly, but she’s on the quieter side, which gives Norbury an additional edge when she comes in, contrasting Cady’s lyrics with a powerful belt.

Another of my favorite mixing moments is from the Les Mis tour I was on a couple of years ago. During “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” Marius is surrounded by the ghosts of his friends who toast him with flickering candles while he mourns their seemingly pointless deaths. The song’s climax comes on the line “Oh my friends, my friends, don’t ask me—” where three things happen at once: the orchestra hits the crest of their crescendo, Marius bites out the sibilant “sk” of “don’t aSK me,” and the student revolutionaries blow out their candles, turning to leave him for good. It’s a stunning visual on its own, but with a little help from the mixer to push into both the orchestral and vocal build, it’s a powerful aural moment as well.

The final and most important part of any mix is: listening. It’s ironic—but maybe unsurprising—that we constantly have to remind ourselves to do the most basic aspect of our job amidst the chaos of all the mechanics. A mix can be technically perfect and still lack heart. It can catch every detail and, in doing so, lose the original story in a sea of noise. It’s a fine line to walk and everyone (and I mean everyone) has an opinion about sound. So, as you hit every pickup, balance everything together, and facilitate the emotions of a scene, make sure you listen to how everything comes together. Pull back the trumpet that decided to go too loud and proud today and is sticking out of the mix. Give the actress who’s getting buried a little push to get her out over the orchestra. When the song reaches its last note and there’s nothing you need to do to help it along, step back and let it resolve.

Combining all these elements should give you a head start on a mix that not only achieves the basic goals of sound design but goes above and beyond to help tell the story. Trust your ears, listen to your designer, and have fun mixing!

Heather Augustine – Patience, flexibility, and persistence

Heather Augustine’s introduction to theatre sound happened almost by accident.

Now Head of Sound for the US National Tour of Les Misérables, she recalls how in high school, it was initially acting that drew her to theatre, “I loved that idea that in theatre you can break the mold and push boundaries.” It was a surplus of female actors for the annual musical that led to an unexpected introduction to technical operations: “I actually wanted to do lights, but my sister was older, so she got to pick first, and she picked lights. Little did I know that running sound for that musical would set me up for the rest of my career!”

That initial step led to further sound and tech work at high school and at 16, she got a job as an audio operator at the San Antonio SeaWorld park. When it came time to consider college, it seemed a natural step to continue working in technical theatre.

Her “official” introduction to theatre sound design came after meeting Curtis Craig at a Texas Thespian Festival. Craig became her sound design professor at Penn State, where Heather studied for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatrical Design and Technology, with an emphasis on Sound Design and Costume Technology.

At college, she expanded on the skills she learned in high school and at SeaWorld. “[which] were more “this happens, you push this button” with a little bit of mixing,” and was introduced to all aspects of technical theatre. These aspects included scenic, lighting, costumes and technical direction, with higher-level classes and show assignments in her areas of emphasis.

Heather PSU Tailgate

After graduating, connections and recommendations from Penn State enabled her to get a job with NETworks Presentations. Following college, she started touring as an A2 (Assistant Audio, also called Sound No. 2 in the UK). Aside from some summer festivals and freelance design/mixing work for smaller theatres in Dallas, Texas (where her family is based), she’s toured for the past six years. Over this time she’s worked on six shows, moving up to the A1 (Head Audio, or Sound No. 1) position for the last two shows.

Early on in her career, she felt pressure to be more technically adept than her male counterparts. “I’m quick to pick up a mix, and I can organize and do split and cut tracks faster than most, but I have to get my hands on gear and spend time with it before I really understand it. I can’t rattle off hundreds of model numbers, and it took me a while to be okay with that. You need both sets of skills to make a show work.”

Even so, she says that her real challenge was her mindset, “It took me a bit longer than it should have to make the transition from A2 to A1 because I would let my insecurities get the better of me and convince me that I wasn’t ready to do it on my own. When I finally decided to make the shift, I found out I was fine. There’s always more to learn, and sometimes you have to force yourself to make that leap.”

Heather OZ FOH

In her current role as Head of Sound for the US National Tour of Les Misérables, Heather is responsible for mixing the show, maintaining the overall sound design and managing the logistics of getting the system in and out of the various venues.

Like any major touring production, the national tour of Les Mis travels with everything needed to walk into a bare stage and set up a show from scratch. Set, costumes, electrics, audio and everything else required fits into eleven 53-foot semi-trailers. With a show this size, planning is paramount, and long (and early) hours are part of the job.

Sound get-in at a new theatre starts with an advance rigger/swing tech who leaves the previous city on load-out day (usually Sunday) and works with the local crew in the new theatre on the next day (Monday) for five hours to rig the monitors. The rest of the crew finish the load out from the previous theatre around eight to ten hours after the last show goes down (usually Sunday evening into the early hours of Monday morning), jump on a bus and go to the next city. The full load-in starts at 2 pm on Monday and finishes around 11 pm, with a dinner break. The crew go back in at 8 am the next morning (Tuesday) for another eight hours, with a show on Tuesday night. The rest of the week runs with one evening show on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and two shows on Saturday and Sunday. For a week “sit,” load-out happens after the second show on Sunday, and the process repeats for the next city. Every couple of weeks the show might stay at a theatre for two to three weeks, and the crew will get Mondays off.

Heather PSU Truck Loading

Heather admits that her least favorite part of the job is working between 5 am – 7 am: “I don’t care if we’re loading out and it goes into the morning, or if we start the day with a 6 am call, I’m happiest when I never have to look at a clock during those hours.”

During load-in, as A1 (Head Audio) Heather is responsible for getting the system up and running and tuning and timing it. The current Les Mis system comprises a DiGiCo SD7 at Front of House (FOH), Meyer Leopard arrays, UPJ center cluster and delays truss, UPM front fills, 600HP and 500HP subs. D&B E5s are used for under-balcony delays and onstage monitoring. Meyer Galileo and Callisto systems are used for processing, with two redundant QLab machines for playback. They use a Sennheiser SK-5212 wireless system with DPA 4061 mics.

After the show is in, Heather will mix the majority of the shows, as well as being available for rehearsals (possibly one or two a week), particularly “put-in” rehearsals. These are essentially full runs of a show with full tech elements for swings, understudies or new members of the cast: “People will start leaving for various reasons (contracts end, other jobs come up, etc.), so the cycle continues as you continue to rehearse and put new people into the show.”

The second person in the sound department, the A2, will mix around two shows a week and runs the “stage sound” – the backstage aspects of the show. This includes managing all radio and onstage mics, troubleshooting and running a show track or teaching this to a local stagehand. Heather jokes that “the A2 is the PR rep for the department because [they are] the one around all the actors and crew while the A1 is out at FOH during the show.”

As well as the responsibility of getting the sound up and running at each new theatre, the A1 has to think ahead to the next stage on the tour.

The system is specified before the tour by the Sound Designer, whose job it is to work with the director and MD (musical director) to create and define the overall sound for the show. This will include choosing the speakers, mics, console, processors and everything else that’s required for the system, tuning it, and sourcing or creating sound effects and soundscapes. The job of the A1/Head Audio is to learn the sound and replicate this in each theatre on the tour. Part of the A1’s role is, therefore, to consider whether the tour has enough speakers to cover the next space and whether it can accommodate their rig.

Does the new venue have any quirks for which they need to plan?

It’s clear that as well as technical expertise, the job of an A1 requires solid organizational skills, flexibility, patience, and persistence. Heather emphasizes these last three as being key when touring: “Things are never going to work out quite the way you want them to, and mistakes are going to happen. [You have] to get right back up and try again.”

She encourages any women and young women who want to work in theatre sound to “Figure out what your thing is and go with it. I hear a lot of people trying to figure out the “right” way to deal with discriminatory situations, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Learn from others, but realize that it’s okay to have a different way of dealing with people, and find out what makes you comfortable.”

Heather Phantom FOH

From Heather’s perspective, theatre can be a supportive environment for women. “[There’s] a lot of support. Both from women who are already in the industry, and from a lot of guys who are happy to see more and more women in audio. I can’t count the number of times that someone has told me it’s great to see a woman or an all-female audio team (when my A2’s have been women) come into their theatre.”

As for the future of theatre sound, Heather believes there will be a shift towards using more digital technology. This is particularly in light of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission, the regulatory authority for wire and radio communications in the US) moving to auction off increasing amounts of the RF (radio frequency) spectrum. She also believes departments will become more integrated. Many shows, like Les Mis, already link sound and lighting cues through MIDI, and other elements such as automation and effects can also be linked together.

In terms of her own career, Heather would love to mix on Broadway. She’s also looking towards a time when she has the financial independence to be able to work on smaller or newer projects that feed her passion.

For the moment, Heather appreciates her job for two reasons.

First, the people: “It’s still mind-boggling to me how you can know someone for only a couple weeks, but after you tech, a show, do a couple grueling load-ins and outs, you form a bond, and it feels like you’ve known each other for years.”

And second, “there are times I watch as I’m mixing, and take a moment to appreciate what an amazing show it is, and how incredibly proud I am of it. Those moments make all the days of planning, the long hours working, and (sometimes) the lack of sleep worth it.”

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