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On Aesthetic Distance & Virtual Live Performance

 

In a theater, sound design is a mode of transportation into the world of the story. As we adapt to creating virtual live performances, however, we are up against greater challenges in effectively inviting the audience into the worlds we are building. In the virtual space, live performances are flattened – both literally and figuratively. So, the question becomes, how do we translate live theatrical performances to the virtual space in a way that offers a satisfying experience comparable to that of in-person theater? How do we address the lack of sensory immersion and narrow the gap in the aesthetic distance?

The X factor at home is huge and complicated – far beyond the question of what sort of headphones or speakers are used. How is the audience watching the show? Have they set everything up on their TV, lights dim, no distractions or are they balancing a tablet on the kitchen counter while they cook dinner, their kids watch cartoons, dog barks, and upstairs neighbors do jazzercise? Background noise and viewing setup aside, it’s more difficult to maintain focus at home. Distractions are everywhere, the level of commitment is much lower, and the energetic benefits of being in the room with other people are just not available. All of these issues prevent sensory immersion, widen the aesthetic distance, and impede audiences’ ability and willingness to suspend their disbelief.

In order to really transport our audiences without the control we typically have in a theater, we have to shift our approach. Narrative Transportation Theory (in the context of storytelling) suggests that reaching the state of complete mental absorption in a narrative hinges on two key ingredients: empathy and imagination. As sound designers, we certainly have tools to facilitate empathy along with the work of the text, the actors, fellow designers, etc. But imagination might be the most critical ingredient to pay attention to right now. How are we inviting our audiences to imagine?

In trying to convert our 3D medium to a 2D medium online, it makes sense initially to emulate television and film. And our audiences are already accustomed to enjoying television and film from the comfort of their own homes. However, virtual live theater is not television and it needn’t be. With incredibly tight budgets, the constraints of streaming platforms and accessibility to those platforms, achieving a production level comparable to that of a tv show is a maddening and often disappointing challenge. Beyond the production logistics, there is the issue of “Zoom fatigue.”

Over the past few months, I’ve been meditating on what variation of theater I would like to experience and how I would like to experience it. I desperately want to be transported and lose myself to a story while I’m trapped in my tiny apartment in real life. At the same time, I stare at my computer all day long and the idea of staring some more just for fun seems, well, not fun. I’ve also found it difficult to become immersed in virtual programming as I’m hyper-aware of virtual backgrounds, delays, all of the same things we grapple with behind the scenes. The risk of these elements is that they can stifle imagination rather than ignite it.

At first, my focus was on all of the incredible technology in our hands what innovative things we can do with it from our own homes. Lately, I’ve turned in the opposite direction. More specifically, towards radio plays. These are bare-bones times in need of bare-bones productions. Taking cues from radio plays along with gripping low-budget productions of any sort, memorable black box performances, anything that makes way for a “less is more” sort of approach is worthwhile. Right now, less is more. We certainly have less to work with, but we also need to allow more space for audiences to use their imagination and hopefully be transported into the story. Some of the designs may be best left to the mind’s eye or mind’s ear. We can perhaps benefit from paying special attention to what not to include. And, of course, I am biased towards sound (and would love to give my eyes a break), but I think this idea can apply more widely. In order to close the gap in the aesthetic distance, we have to craft a path towards the imagination.

Now, I am not advocating a strict return to radio plays. Nor am I advocating that we necessarily turn to sound-only media. In thinking about the process, however, live radio plays are a suitable jumping-off point. I certainly don’t have the answer to creating effective virtual productions and I can’t offer prescriptive advice or best practices as every show is completely individual. I do think, though, that there are some elements of a live radio play and its process that can enhance or at least refresh our approach in the virtual space.

Trying to capture attention by increasing stimuli can be more exhausting right now. Stripping a production down, counterintuitively, may offer a better opportunity for immersion. Knowing the challenges that we are up against, considering first what elements need to be presented and which can be forgone is a good first step to streamlining. Do we really need to hear that door close? Is it essential to see that room? As sound designers, we are already cognizant of silence as a strategic part of our design. What we do not hear is equally as important as what we do. We can expand this line of thinking to create more space in a production. What can be strategically left to the imagination? Then, keeping the two-dimensionality of the final product in mind, we can critically assess how each element is best portrayed, whether aurally, visually, as dialogue. The question being, what is the best way to provoke the mind’s ear or mind’s eye to complete the picture?

Lowering the complexity of virtual performances, in addition to making room for enhanced imagination, also allows for more focus and energy within the production. With fewer distractions and fewer opportunities for latency and glitches, actors and audiences alike have more space to relax and concentrate. The energy of live performance is one of the things that makes theater so compelling. When actors are in a flow state, completely absorbed in their characters and the story, all of their energy carries directly to the audience. With a stripped-down design, we can protect that precious energy.

Every show, every production can be approached, produced, designed in infinite ways, none of them right or wrong. As we all wrestle with creating live virtual theater, its limitations and possibilities, it is important to take a step back and re-evaluate our own personal design processes. For me, this has been a helpful way of reframing my work and my goals for virtual performances. It’s my hope that some of these ideas can at least come in handy when a virtual design hits a virtual wall. And when in need of some inspiration, go ahead and close your eyes and listen to some radio plays.

Abigail Nover is a sound designer and composer based out of Miami, Florida. She works as a freelance designer for theatrical productions in English and Spanish throughout the country. She holds a BFA in Sound Design from Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and an MA in Folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work is often rooted in cultural memory and immersion. In addition to theatrical work, Abigail conducts oral histories and writes about cultural and sound studies. She is a member of the OISTAT Sound Design Group.

 

A Little Bit of Magic

 

I miss mixing shows. That thought has snuck up on me every week or so for the past several months. It’s always a tiny bit surprising because I knew I liked my job, but I’d never stopped to take stock of exactly how happy it made me. I know I’m not alone in that; all of us want to get back to our usual, wonderfully irregular lives. One of my favorite things about mixing is that there is always something to do. When I started in theatre, I dabbled in a few other jobs, but as an actor, I got bored sitting backstage for the scenes I wasn’t in and I’d end up helping the crew with set changes. As a sound designer, I found myself, despite a valiant effort to pay attention, inevitably spaced out in my seat when there weren’t problems to actively solve.

But mixing, that’s the best of all worlds. There’s always something to do, something new to watch, something to keep you on your toes. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen a show, there are always surprises:

When I toured with Les Mis, we were probably 30 shows into the run when my A2, Mark, started to learn the mix. We were talking through a scene with a whistle sound effect and he asked, “Do you take that off Felipe’s whistle? Or something else?”

“…. Wait, Felipe whistles?”

Sure enough, watching for him the next performance, Felipe came out, brought two fingers to his mouth for the whistle, and I had to resist the urge to do a facepalm. He wasn’t even tucked somewhere over on the side where I might have missed him. He was dead center stage and the only possible way I would have missed it was…. if I hadn’t even looked. On the upside, no one had noticed up to that point (more a testament to Felipe’s timing than mine), and once Mark pointed it out, we attached the cue to the visual and moved on with the show.

I typically evaluate audio through a cinematic lens when I’m watching a show, meaning that I always have the question in mind: Does the audio match the visual? Sometimes the answers are simple: does the actress exit the stage as she continues to talk? Alright, then her level should decrease as she disappears so it sounds like she’s moving away. Is a guy giving a whistle to alert his friends? Then maybe (just maybe…) the effect should link up with his motion. Just like in a movie, what you’re hearing should complement or even help clarify what you’re seeing. If those two senses aren’t working in harmony, the audience is likely to get confused and pulled out of the show.

These are examples of what I’d unofficially term mechanical augmentations: they’re fairly obvious if you’re looking for them, but go a long way to assist the storytelling or your actors by reinforcing their choices. The more you’re able to pay attention to these details, the better able you are to understand the director’s vision or the character choices, and based on these, you can make more intelligent mixing decisions.

During “Why God?” in Miss Saigon, Chris is lamenting the cruel irony of having found something good and worthwhile in war-torn Vietnam when he had previously been content and safe in his lack of attachments. Towards the end of the song, a group of Vietnamese men come up to him, pleading that they will give him money if he can get them visas to flee the country, until he bursts past them, dramatically venting his final frustration to whatever higher power might be listening.

Through the course of this song, Chris goes from a state of confused contemplation to angry vexation. The music has a natural crescendo, but the true catalyst to the shift in his mood comes from the chorus as they badger him. As the mixer, you have the actors already doing their part, getting more insistent and physically closing in on him as they plead their case, but you can give the scene an extra push. You’re trying to make sure there’s a logical transition from Chris being mildly annoyed to aggressively frustrated which is where (for me) the cinematic lens comes into play. The mixer can push the level of the men begging steadily up along with the orchestra so they both get progressively louder until it makes sense that Chris’s reaction is to push past them to get away from the cacophony.

In the second act of Mean Girls, Regina sings the song “World Burn” as she plots her ultimate revenge against Cady. The beginning of the song starts with Regina, all in black, on a dark, empty stage, save for the copier she’s pushing and the harsh uplight that illuminates her face. She’s pissed, but this is not a yell-in-your-face confrontational angry, this is a quiet, oh so controlled venom where you know she’s not playing and is ready to do some major damage.

Again, you follow what makes sense with the visual onstage. Having Regina’s voice booming out of the PA wouldn’t seem realistic and would jar the audience out of the moment. You want to keep them focused and immersed in the show, so the mix for this scene wants to be subtle and controlled. Still clearly audible, but exactly what you imagine when you think of the phrase “deadly quiet.”

Broadway Cast Photo Credit: Joan Marcus

In addition to those subtleties, there’s another kind of moment. These aren’t necessarily as obvious upfront, and it might take some trial and error to figure out the right combination from a mixing standpoint, but when it happens, there’s just a little bit of magic. It sounds corny, but you know these moments when you get a chill up your spine, or your breath instinctively catches, or the audience goes absolutely nuts and you can’t help but grin like an idiot.

One of the first moments I found like that was back in college on the show, Altar Boyz. Towards the end, one of the characters, Juan, receives bad news but tries to soldier on with the show. Yet, partway through his solo, he reaches a breaking point and runs away. The rest of the boys chase him down and coax him back in a musical moment that starts quietly and begins to build until it culminates with Juan choosing to step back into his spotlight and belt the final bits of the song.

If you get the dynamic bump between the build with the boys and the power of Juan’s reentrance into the song right, the audience starts cheering for all they’re worth, and it’s a grin-like-an-idiot moment. But it’s not just the fader bump that makes that moment. Part of the magic in these little snippets of a show comes from the fact that you can’t do them alone. If the audience doesn’t like Juan throughout the show, what do they care if he comes back to finish the number? There’s a lot riding on the actor himself to bring that moment to fruition. The best moments are the ones where you add a final flourish to bring it home and make the performance that much better.

Another one of my favorite moments was in Les Misérables at the end of “On My Own.” Eponine’s song builds up to this massive culmination of music and then everything cuts off, the vocals, the orchestra, everything, for just a second before she finishes the song with a soft “I love him, but only on my own.”

In the musical build-up to that peak, I would also push the vocal reverb on Eponine and, if I got the balance just right, it felt like the sound was suspended at that moment as the reverb rang out through the house. But there was a razor-thin margin for success which required precision between several different factors: how the actress was singing that night, how I was mixing, and the acoustics of the theatre itself (which changed weekly). If you didn’t push the reverb enough, you wouldn’t get as powerful an impact, but if you pushed too hard, it sounded unnatural and pulled the audience out of the story.

It didn’t happen every show, because there was no exact formula of constant variables where you could just say “x + y = MAGIC!” But that’s part of what makes the times where everything does come together so special.

US National Tour Cast Photo Credit: Matthew Murphy

As you’re working a show, you’ll learn to look for those places for little tweaks and nuances to augment your mix. It doesn’t matter if you take a show because it’s a job to pay the bills, or it’s one that’s been on your bucket list for years, finding those moments will keep you engaged and ultimately give you your favorite parts of the show. I worked on Altar Boyz well over a decade ago, and I still smile whenever I think of mixing that song with Juan. Those are the kind of moments that I miss most and can’t wait to have again when we can get back to work.

 

Everything I Need To Know About Sound Design, I Learned From Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 

Ok, maybe not EVERYTHING, but what I mean to say is that I can (and do) apply RBG’s wisdom anywhere.  We lost a champion of the people, a defender of equality, and a warrior among women when we lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and it’s up to us to make sure that her legacy is carried out for ages to come.  It sounds lofty, I know.  Carrying out her legacy does not mean that we need to be as notable as she was.  It doesn’t mean that we have to decide the fate of millions of people.  It just means that we have to stand up for what is right, and speak up for what we believe in.  We can do this in our own little corners of the world.  From the moment we wake up until the moment we close our eyes, we make decisions.  Some decisions are small, and some decisions hold more weight and can affect more people.  Let’s just take an extra breath and ask ourselves, “What would Ruth Bader Ginsburg Do?”

“It helps sometimes to be a little deaf (in marriage and in) every workplace, including the good job I have now.”

This seems like a strange way to begin a Sound Design blog, but hear me out, it’s impossible to hear the macro when we’re so focused on the micro.  I don’t know if this is what RBG meant by this, but this is how I’m choosing to read it.  It’s hard to see our place in the world when we can only see ourselves.  I once composed an opening sequence for a show I was designing.  It was perfect, I absolutely loved it and was really proud.  During tech, we ran the opening.  During the hold, the director looked at me, scrunched up his face, and said, “I don’t think the opening music is working.”  It was really the last thing I expected him to say, and now I became hyper-focused and aware of that music.  We ran it again, and I listened to the music.  Intently.  I closed my eyes, I moved to the center of the house, and I listened.  The director said, “See what I mean?”  No.  I didn’t.  So we ran it again, and this time I kept my eyes open, and I noticed a costume piece I had not seen before.  It was bright.  The actors in the opening light looked light and cheery.  I wasn’t even listening to the music anymore, I was watching everything on stage, and I realized, my music didn’t match these elements.  I had to be a little deaf to it to realize that.

“My mother told me to be a lady.  And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.”

This one is easy but still important.  In the entertainment industry at large, we are compared to those that have come before us and even those that work alongside us.  As designers, it is imperative that we have our own voices, thoughts, and ideas.  What value is there in “doing it like the cast recording?”  Stay far away from “this is the way we’ve always done it.”  You don’t need that kind of negativity!  “This is the way we’ve always done it” is not good for design, and it’s not good for growth.  It’s ok to be the one voice that asks to do things differently.

“Women will have achieved true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.”

This is ever so true for Sound Designers.  We’ve all read the statistics.  Sound Design is a heavily male-dominated field, and it always has been.  What’s important to remember is that it won’t always be that way.  We’re starting to be recognized, we’re starting to be sought after and appreciated, and the next generation will learn from all of these women.  There has never been a lack of talented women in Sound Design.  There has been a lack of belief and trust in those women.  There’s been a lack of support, and now that is starting to change, but there is still work to be done.

“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”

There should not be one single aspect of your life for which this does not ring true.  It does not matter how big or small the situation, if you care about it-fight for it…thoughtfully.  I think about this when I’m designing if I come to a point where I’m defending an endangered cue.  It’s at the forefront of my mind when advocating for students’ opportunities.  When I’m questioning a policy, I remember these words.  And when I’m being an ally and an accomplice in industry-wide equity, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s words give me confidence and grace.

Look, the fact of the matter is, I could have written this blog about any job in any industry and still been able to apply RBG wisdom.  The reason why her words are so applicable to every situation is that they are always about the human experience.  Let the small things go, be an individual, assert yourself, equality, equality, equality.  One more little piece of advice from me:  You can have a role model and still be an individual.  If you’re looking for some enlightenment, it doesn’t get much better than Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

 

The Best First Impression

Taking the time to evaluate and critique your resume is vital to putting your best foot forward, and as we’re all at a pause, there’s no better time to do that than now. That piece of paper (or pdf file) becomes your first impression to designers, production managers, and other employers. But all too often, even starting to write your resume can feel like an impossible task. Even more so because there’s very little standardization of what they should look like for theatre. Sifting through websites with tips and helpful hints for a traditional, corporate-based structure can range from confusing to downright frustrating when you’re trying to apply it to a completely different world.

At its heart, your resume is telling a story. Where did you come from? What have you done? How have you progressed over your career? You’re just telling it in bullet points instead of prose. Anyone looking at your resume is trying to do a couple of things: they want to know what skills you have and what shows you’ve worked on, or people you’ve worked with, but they’re also looking for information about who you are and if you’d be a good fit for a team they’re building. Your resume gives them small indications of that based on its presentation: did you slap together a slipshod line of things you’ve worked on with your name pasted at the top? Or does it look like you took some time and pride in presenting yourself to potential employers?

Over the course of your career, you’ll end up with a couple different versions of your resume. When you’re first starting out and have less experience, you may include some details about what your jobs entailed, but once you’re established in your career, your resume neatens up and becomes a list of the shows you’ve worked on and what your role was. Even then, you still may have a couple versions to focus on different skills or shows: if you’re looking for design work as opposed to mixing work as opposed to production work.

For example, when I left college, I broke my experience in a few categories: Touring, A1, A2, Corporate, and Other Experience. It was busier than it needed to be and didn’t have much organization other than dividing up my experience. After working for a few years, my resume shifted to two categories: Touring and A1. That simplified things by getting rid of my college experience, starting to use sound designers instead of directors for shows, and formulating a better narrative. Instead of throwing every show, I’d done in the mix, I used my touring experience to highlight my progression from an A2 to A1, and selected certain shows I’d mixed off of tour to show that I’d worked at the same festival multiple years in a row (i.e. people wanted to work with me again).

Looking forward, if my goals shift to getting off the road in (likely to find a mixing-focused job where I could stay in one location), I would make a new resume that focuses on my A1 experience (including touring, sit-downs, festivals, one-offs, etc), and pushes my A2 work on the road into a less prominent category.

When you start writing your resume, it helps to break it down into manageable chunks. In my experience, most resumes have four general categories: Identifier, Experience, Skills/Education, and References.

 

Typically the hardest part of a resume to write is the Experience category. While your name, contact info, education, and skills are cut and dry lists, here you have to look through your jobs and sort out which ones you want to use.  To help, start by asking yourself what story you want to tell:

Once you know what you’re going to put in your resume, here are some overall notes to keep in mind:

Finally, references. This can be the most important category of your resume. A first-hand account of your abilities and work ethic from a trusted source has more influence than any words on a page. This is another area where you can choose to personalize your resume on a job-by-job basis if you have mutual acquaintances with the reader.

When picking a reference, it depends on your job. If you’re a designer, you want to choose directors or other designers you’ve worked with. As an A1 or A2, use designers, associates, or production colleagues. (I’ll use resident directors or music directors as well, but it’s better to prioritize other sound people first.) A2s can also use their A1s.

Always ask for permission before you include someone as a reference. It’s the polite and professional thing to do as well as letting them know if you’re sending out resumes, especially if they might get a call. In the age of telemarketers and spam phone calls, all of us default to ignoring unknown numbers.

You should always include your references. There are a couple of exceptions to this: if you’re sending resume-blasts out to a variety of potential jobs, or if you’re posting your resume online in a public forum where your reference might not want their personal contact information displayed.

So, let’s take a look at a not-so-great resume:

 

And if we make some edits:

And this is what my actual resume looks like. “Other Experience” is simplified down to a list, and it’s simple, concise, and easy to skim:

Once you have a resume written, always double-check for typos, inconsistencies, etc. (Then have a friend check, or two or three to be on the safe side.) This is something you’ll constantly add to and change as you progress in your career. After doing research for this post, I went back and made several tweaks, and that was a resume I’ve used for several years. Eventually, your reputation may proceed you enough that you don’t use your resume as much, but until then, make sure you make the best first impression you can.

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.

 

Theater Sound Production Webinar

Join SoundGirls and Modern Projects, Inc. on Wednesday, April 15 at 14:00 EDT / 19:00 BST for a panel of Theater Working Professionals for an online ‘meetup’ to discuss career trajectories, obstacles, access, success stories and more.

This will be a lightly-moderated introduction and facilitated Q&A format.  Come prepared with questions and topics interesting to you!

Panelists include:

Adrianna Brannon – Assistant Sound Engineer for HAMILTON US National Tour And Peggy Company
Anna-Lee Craig – Assistant Sound Engineer for HAMILTON Broadway
Mackenzie Ellis – FOH Engineer for DEAR EVAN HANSEN US National Tour
Tony Gayle – Associate Sound Designer for DEAR EVAN HANSEN London and TINA London, Hamburg and Utrecht
Em Gustason – FOH Engineer for BANDSTAND US National Tour
Rachelle Hough – Assistant Sound Engineer for HAMILTON US National Tour Philip Company
Anthony Jones – FOH Engineer for HAMILTON US National Tour Angelica Company
Jessica Paz – Sound designer for HADESTOWN, Associate Sound designer for DEAR EVAN HANSEN
Nevin Steinberg – Sound designer for HAMILTON, DEAR EVAN HANSEN, HADESTOWN, and TINA: THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL
Emma Thomson – FOH Engineer for DEAR EVAN HANSEN London
Connor Wang – Assistant Sound Designer for THE CHER SHOW Broadway
Z Worthington – Assistant Sound Designer for TINA: THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL Broadway

 

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.

 

Shadow on Hello Dolly w/ Tim Schmidt

SoundGirls Members have been invited to shadow Tim Schmidt the A1 on Hello Dolly.

Tim will be walking you through the show from start to finish. You will get a tour of the full system and how they load it in and set it all up. Of course, answering any questions you may have along the way about any topics.

Important Info:

Please only apply if you are pursuing a career in theatre sound production or are currently working in the field. Apply Here

Dates Available

Providence, RI – Providence Performing Arts Center

Buffalo, NY – Buffalo Theatre

Rochester, NY – Rochester Auditorium Theatre

Hello, Dolly!

Broadway legend Carolee Carmello stars in Hello, Dolly! Breaking box office records week after week and receiving thunderous raves on Broadway, this Hello, Dolly! pays tribute to the original work of legendary director/choreographer Gower Champion—hailed both then and now as one of the greatest stagings in musical theater history.
SYNOPSIS: High-spirited matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi helps three sets of young people find romance while angling to win for herself the “well-known half-a-millionaire” Horace Vandergelder. Based on Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker,” this long-running musical includes the songs “Before the Parade Passes By,” “It Only Takes a Moment,” and the title song.

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