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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.

Stage Managers and Sound Designers

Together Forever

2020 is the year of the stage manager, so this is the perfect time to talk about how I get the most out of my Sound Designer/Stage Manager relationship!  The Stage Manager is the one person that probably knows the most about the show and the actors. They are also the one who is going to make sure your design is executed exactly as planned at each and every show.  Basically, the Stage Manager is someone you really want in your corner, so I want to go over just a few of the ways my relationship with Stage Managers has been beneficial.

First of all, I completely support listing the Stage Manager as a part of the creative team.  I’m stating this, maybe obvious (to some) fact, because it just doesn’t happen a lot. Frankly, I’m still beating the “LIST THE SOUND DESIGNER IN YOUR POSTS” drum loud and hard, because that title is also one that is often left off…. I guess because you can’t see that design in a photo.  So if I have to constantly remind people that Sound Designers are part of the creative team and need to be listed in posts, I can’t imagine how much harder that fight is for Stage Managers. Let’s just think about it for a minute though. What defines a creative team? Surprisingly, I couldn’t find a succinct “Theatrical Creative Team” textbook definition, but I did find this “Advertising Creative Team” definition from smallbusiness.chron.com, and honestly, it totally fits:

A creative team is made up of several key members, starting with a creative director,  and including copywriters, editors, graphic designers and artists, and web developers.  In short, it’s the group of people that comes up with advertising ideas and brings those ideas into being.

This is basically the same for theatre, right?  The Director, Choreographer, Music Director, and Designers are the key members that come up with the ideas and bring those ideas to the stage.  But from the first concept meeting, the Stage Manager is also there. They are running the meetings, taking notes, and sending those notes out to the team.  The Stage Manager is keeping track of all of the action that’s going on in rehearsal and keeps the rest of the team updated daily. They will remind the director of Designers’ ideas, and likewise, let Designers in on things that might help or hurt their design idea—like informing a Sound Designer that a group of actors are constantly blocked to be in a place where a speaker was going to be.  They are the ones firing sound cues in rehearsal and reporting on how it was received by the director, and any good stage manager will practice calls over and over until their “GO” lands at that perfect swell in the music that will ensure every audience member leaves feeling all the feels. That’s art. Stage Management is an art form, and they have every right to be recognized as part of the creative team, and basically, what I’m saying is that the more we openly recognize that fact with our Stage Manager friends, the better the working relationship is going to be.

I mentioned that the Stage Manager probably knows more about the actors than anyone else.  This is really useful to the Sound Designer of a musical. For years, I would make my plans about which microphones to use, which lavs to put on actors, what I would use to change the color of the lavs if needed, what kind of tape or another attachment method to use, and which style of mic belts to assign well ahead of tech on my own.  Many times over the years, I would run into situations where I was changing tape on an actor because they were allergic to what I was using, or switching out a mic belt because of a blocking direction that was just given, or what have you. It was frustrating, and would often create a domino effect if I was short on equipment or supplies.  I soon learned that consulting the Stage Manager while I was preparing these plans alleviated a lot of those issues for me before I even met the actor. The Stage Manager would not only know the nuts and bolts information, like allergies and blocking, but also more personal things, like actor preferences: This actor likes to wear the lav on the left side of the face, that actor has their own mic belt, etc.  Once I realized that I could unlock that info ahead of time, it was a definite level up for me.

The Stage Manager is also very invested in protecting your design and maintaining its original intention throughout the run.  There are sometimes situations in which microphone and lav placement are very specific, and I’ll tell a Stage Manager that if this position moves an inch one way or the other, the sound will change.  Many of the Stage Managers I’ve worked within the past take that information very seriously and will note actors throughout the run for the sake of the design and the production. I’ve also worked with Stage Managers in the past who, during rehearsal, will bring up things I’ve said in the past about which circumstances give us the best sound quality if it looks like the Director is blocking actors to be somewhere or do something that is not conducive to excellent sound quality.  Because I like to keep a line of open communication between myself and my Stage Managers, I’m able to count on them to be my voice, even if I’m not in the room.

When it comes to theatre allies, Stage Managers are definitely a group of people I want on that list.  I want to know that they care as much about my design as I do, and will give their all every night to make sure that it is executed perfectly.  I think that as Designers, we can sometimes feel overprotective of our work, and it’s sometimes hard to remember that the questions, the emails, the regular check-ins from a Stage Manager are all in pursuit of the same goal as us—a perfectly crafted piece of theatre.

 

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!

An Open Letter to Theatre Reviewers

The play includes more than the actors on the stage

Dear theatre critics and reviewers worldwide,

First off, I’d like to say thank you for the love and enthusiasm you have for live theatre.  While the general population launches forward to keep up with technological trends such as virtual reality, wearable gaming, augmented reality, high-def displays, and holographic video, some of us, yourselves included, are desperately clinging to the lost art of live performance.  While technological leaders spend billions of dollars trying to invent the next piece of equipment that will make that game or movie look so real you can touch it, theatres everywhere are struggling to get people into their auditoriums to witness what can only be described as the pinnacle of reality, and no, the irony is not lost on me.  We theatre-makers appreciate you because you still believe in the magic of theatre. You still come to the shows, you put your phones away, you pay attention, and most importantly, you report. We rely on these reports to get the word out about this beautiful piece of REAL magic that’s happening in the readers’ very same city. There’s just one little thing I want to discuss, though: There’s more to the play than just the actors on stage.

I’m a sound designer working mostly in regional theatre, and I would say 85% of the reviews I read don’t even mention designers or technical crew.  Now, I know that there is a lot that happens in this industry that people on the outside just don’t know about, so I get that, but if you are reading your program before the show starts, you’ve probably noticed that there’s an entire page dedicated to production.  There’s probably an artistic director, production manager, scenic designer, costume designer, lighting designer, and sound designer. There’s sometimes a projection designer, wig designer, music director, pit musicians, composer, choreographer, fight director, and honestly, probably some other designers/directors that I didn’t even know existed.  You will also most likely find a stage manager and sound engineer, a light board operator, spotlight operators, deck crew, wardrobe crew, audio crew, and all of the artisans that built, sewed, and painted all of the physical aspects of the show. At the level of theatre, I work on; I’d say there’s generally an additional 40-50 people contributing to the show that are never seen on stage.  Isn’t that also worth reporting on? The actors do an amazing job of taking audiences out of their worlds for a few hours, but would it even be possible to make that journey in a dark, empty, silent room?

This is not the first letter to theatre reviewers that I have written.  Several years ago, I kept reading review after review of shows that my colleagues and I had designed the sound for and never read even a mention of those designs.  All of those shows were reviewed by the same person, and I emailed him asking why he never reported on what the show sounded like. Given that most of those shows were musicals, I’d say the aural response was a pretty significant one.  His reply to me was that he didn’t know what sound design was, or that it was even a thing. I get that, I really do, but as a newspaper writer, aren’t you something of a journalist? Haven’t you been taught to investigate, research, and find out the whole story?  I gave him some enlightening information on the practice of sound design and waited on pins and needles for an improvement in his next review. I’m sad to report that I never received that satisfaction.

It’s not just sound designers that get this treatment, even though, as a sound designer, it is the area where I am the most sensitive.  Many of the reviews I have read of theatres in my area over the past year have had little to no mention of design or crew. Instead, the reviews have consisted of a paragraph or two sending glowing praise to leading actors in the show, the occasional shout-out to supporting ensemble members, and then the rest of the review reads like a book report telling us what the story is about.  Sometimes there is the rare and seemingly obligatory list of designer names at the bottom of the review like their editor told them they had to say something about design, so they mentioned the designers’ existence to appease the boss. I’m not a reviewer, so maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t think that dedicating 75% of the column to writing the show’s Cliff’s Notes is a review of what actually happened in that room.

As I mentioned before, I know that what we do is mysterious, and sometimes difficult to understand, so here are some facts about regional theatre and the kinds of questions you should be trying to answer:

  1. Making a play takes a lot of planning!  The design team of a regional show will probably start that planning process 4-6 months ahead of the show’s opening, and meet every 1-2 weeks to discuss the show’s progress.
  2. Making a play also takes money!  A large-scale musical on the regional theatre level could cost $30k-$60k to get the show looking and sounding spectacular.
  3. Making a play takes research!  The next time you’re reviewing a show, take a look at the details.  Do those civil war era costumes match what you remember from history books?  Where did they come from? Did this theatre make them in-house? What about that authentic-looking Mid-Century Modern furniture that is so popular now.  That chair alone would go for $5000, so how did this theatre get it?
  4. Making a play takes technical knowledge!  See all of those lights moving, changing colors, and making interesting patterns on the stage?  Do you hear all of those sound effects swirling around the space? Can you hear the amplified voices blending with the music? This is not a My-First-System kind of thing.  Someone went to a lot of trouble to make that cool stuff work.
  5. Making a play takes coordination!  There are so many moving parts to a play, and once it starts, it has to keep going.  We can’t just skip over the hard parts, and if something goes wrong, someone has to make a quick decision on what to do to keep the train moving.  Who’s doing that, and how? How do the people on the ground know what do to? How much practice does all of this take?

So, reviewers of theatre, again, thank you for your dedication and love.  We really do appreciate it. But please, the next time you go to the theatre, try to answer the not so easy questions, because for this dying art, “the actors were great, and this story is a lot of fun,” is just not enough anymore.  We need you to help expose this world to those who don’t know what they’re missing, and this world has some pretty stiff competition in this modern and highly technical society.

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