Godspell (2012) - Festival 56 - 2021
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A small group of people help Jesus Christ tell different parables by using a wide variety of games, storytelling techniques and a hefty dose of comic timing. An eclectic blend of songs, ranging in style from pop to vaudeville, is employed as the story of Jesus' life dances across the stage.
Godspell is a great show with engaging music and exciting comedy, both of which were the focus of my sound design. Some of the best moments were when we used effects, like reverb during a dream or pitch shift and delay for Pharisee voices. I also utilized different microphone placements for best sound quality while keeping them unobstructed and hidden to not conflict with the costuming. Speaker placement was also very important to me, especially with being outdoors. I created a speaker plot that gave both an even spread of sound from left to right while also being able to cover a significant amount of space for an outdoor, socially distanced production. Below are the recordings of four numbers that range from pop to ballad.
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Romeo and Juliet - Festival 56 - 2021
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Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet tells the tale of a young man and woman, who fall in love but are destined for tragedy due to their warring families - the Montagues and the Capulets.
This production of Romeo and Juliet was created to focus on more modern times, with the theme that parents fail their children. One way that we incorporated this was to use modern music with a string quartet arrangement, to make current music feel more traditional. I also underscored some fights and important moments to really bring out the broken world we were creating. Another important part of the design was to record the prologue and play back certain parts of it throughout the show to highlight both its importance and truth while we see the events unfold. Below I have a portion of the prologue, a collage of sounds for the wedding preparation scene, underscoring during Juliet's sleep monologue, and underscoring for Juliet's death.
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The Job - University of Iowa New Play Festival - 2021
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In Ikram Basra's monologue The Job, a young Pakistani journalist takes us on a journey through the political and cultural landscape of post-9/11 Pakistan during the US war in Afghanistan...
The goal of this show was to have it scored, almost completely, by atmospheric music. Focusing less on instrumentation and more on ambient pads and the transitions from real-life into memories. The audio below is the introduction into the show, which is much more light and bright than what we experience throughout the journey. It is followed by scoring of the first moment we interact with the Taliban.
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Essential Workers: A Portrait - University of Iowa Mainstage - 2020
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Essential Workers: A Portrait brings to the screen seven individuals to help us appreciate why they are, indeed, essential...
Essential Workers was a new challenge for me, as it was all done in post production due to COVID-19. Seven episodes of edited audio, separate plays in each one, and scored intros, interviews, and credits. The audio below is a compilation of the intro music, a 30 sec loop for interview underscore, a portion of scoring from the play One True Thing which features a phone-psychic, and finally a scoring loop for the credits.
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Palanquin - University 0f Iowa - 2020
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On her very own reality TV show, a glamorous, business-savvy, hotel heiress named LA will soon choose her new “best friend” from a pool of contestants desperate to earn the title...
For Palanquin, I was the Associate Sound Designer to Chris McCreary and took his design into tech and made adjustments and changes up to performances. This show centered around a reality show that was tearing people apart, and depicted that the camera was always watching. So Chris and I brought together a collection of royalty free music, which the play called for, and some atmospheric sounds to really put this world into perspective. In the compilation below, you will hear the opening song to the "show", a buzz which signals on air, a taser, and the closing song which is an edited version of the opening.
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We All Were Sunflowers - University of Iowa - 2019
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In 1919, protests have challenged the rule of British Raj in Punjab, India, and Lt. Governor Michael O’Dwyer creates the conditions for a massacre in Amritsar to send a message...
In We All Were Sunflowers, we were interested in all of the atmospheric noise that was happening throughout the play. Train stations, campfires, animals, and specifically the massacre. But the moment that stuck out to me the most in this play was when we see a group of prisoners walking in a circle inside their cell, while speaking words that echo throughout the play. These were recorded and edited to add echos as they spoke this onstage. You can listen to the moment below.
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Blackberry: A Burial - University of Iowa New Play Festival - 2019
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Blackberry, a pet goat kept by a girl named Jess, has been murdered and beheaded. His head, inexplicably taken, now sings and cries out to her from an unknown location...
Blackberry has been one of my favorite shows to work on to date. This was the first time I explored composition for a show and it has really opened up my skill set for new designs. Our goal for this show was to really bring out the despair Jess was feeling after the death, and in search of, Blackberry. Most of this was accomplished with the songs Blackberry sings to her. As Blackberry sings, we understand and feel everything Jess has experienced. Below you can listen to the first time Blackberry calls out to Jess. The stage is dark, and light slowly illuminates Blackberry's head hanging in the air. Blackberry is voiced by Mark Bruckner, a mentor and colleague.
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A Kingdom Jack'd - University of Iowa New Play Festival - 2018
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In this satirical retelling of Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays, it’s 1399, despised King Richard II has been deposed, and now the infamous, blundering, roguish Jack Falstaff has the crown of England!
A Kingdom Jack'd was my first project I had the opportunity to sound design, and let me say there are a lot of things I learned during this process. Our goal here was to created a morphed 1399 England, so I found some modernized Medieval music that we used and pulled some sound effects. Again, I learned a lot here. One cue I am proud of is a recorded foley effect of the King conducting his "business" on his throne/stool. Thus dubbed the #StoolPlunk by our cast and creative team. You can listen to it below.
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